


False Dawn

by Idrils_Scribe



Series: Gathering Dusk [2]
Category: The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angmar, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arnor, Elves, Family, Family Feels, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Parent Elrond, Pre-War of the Ring, Rivendell | Imladris, Siblings, Third Age, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:35:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 50,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27797056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idrils_Scribe/pseuds/Idrils_Scribe
Summary: The year is 1409 of the Third Age. The kingdom of Arnor has splintered apart, and in the northern wastelands Angmar's shadow grows. Having failed to conquer Rivendell with his armies, the Witch-king tries a more devious way to destroy the House of Elrond - a house now divided against itself.Sequel to Gathering Dusk, but can be enjoyed on its own. This story is completely written and will be updated regularly.Many thanks to my marvelous beta readers Anoriath and Dawn Felagund, without whose help, encouragement and support this story could not have been written.
Relationships: Arwen & Elladan & Elrohir, Celebrían & Elladan & Elrohir (Tolkien), Celebrían/Elrond Peredhel, Elladan & Elrohir & Elrond Peredhel, Elladan & Elrohir (Tolkien), Elrohir & Glorfindel (Tolkien)
Series: Gathering Dusk [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1558102
Comments: 195
Kudos: 94
Collections: The Tolkien Decameron Project





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning: like the rest of the series, this work is heavily based on Tolkien canon, particularly the Silmarillion and the LoTR appendices. War is central to the story. Expect Silmarillion levels of violence, Orcs behaving Orcishly, descriptions of injuries and dead bodies, and character deaths (none go against canon). Rape and torture are mentioned and their aftermath described, but there's no detailed description of the acts themselves. As in Tolkien's own work, familial conflict is among the main themes. If it's in the Silmarillion, chances are that it'll turn up here. Proceed with caution (or not at all) if any of the above might trigger or upset you.

**Imladris, the year 1409 of the Third Age**

High above the Misty Mountains the star-strewn east had begun to brighten. A pale moon hung low over the ridges looming over Imladris Down in the valley a battle was raging, and the coming dawn would bring Elrohir no relief. 

Exhaustion got the better of him, and he was a fraction too slow to dodge. He lacked the breath to do more than wheeze as a swift elbow to his ribs winded him. There was no time to wonder whether they were broken. This fight had dragged on with neither mercy nor quarter for two gruelling hours, and Elrohir’s opponent advanced yet again, sword aloft and a harsh, wrathful fire in his eyes. 

Their blades connected with an ear-splitting clang. Elrond spun aside, feinting left only to come in with a killing cut to Elrohir’s right flank. This was one of Maedhros’ clever, left-handed moves, very nearly unbeatable, but Canissë had drummed this very lesson into her student so thoroughly that Elrohir’s body remembered it as well as his brain. Nimble as a Wood-elf he dodged Elrond’s deathblow and sought to plunge his dagger into his father’s throat, only to find Elrond’s right hand pressing a dirk into his stomach.

“We take down each other. Well fought!” Elrond smiled, fell and fierce, and for an instant Elrohir saw no gentle healer but the formidable commander whose armies once trod the Black Tower into the dust. 

Elrohir laughed as he returned the blunt, weighted practice blades to their wooden chest and turned to his father bearing a decanter of watered wine. As he poured two cups of the tart drink, cooled in ice from the cellars, the sun rose above the eastern valley ridge and birdsong erupted across the forest bordering the family garden.

Elrond drained his cup in one long, thirsty swig and blotted his face with a linen towel. Elrohir stood contemplating his father with an expression he knew would betray his concern. Of late, Elrond had taken to roping Imladris’ finest sword fighters into these lengthy practice sessions. What disastrous foresight had convinced the Lord of Imladris that he might need to lay hand to blade himself, Elrohir had not yet dared to ask. This morning would provide the perfect opportunity though, and he intended to take it. Elrond’s vision could not be worse than the dark imaginings that had plagued Elrohir on the road.

Elrohir’s musings were interrupted when Elrond took his empty cup from his hand to set it in the grass. Elrond's brow furrowed in concentration as he laid a hand against Elrohir’s ribs where his elbow had struck, and sang a single cantrip of sonorous Quenya. Elrohir let the warm wave of power wash through him unopposed, and felt the forming bruise retreat, muscle and sinew knitting together. Dealing out injuries, no matter how small, would disturb Elrond’s gift of healing. These were perilous times, and some unfortunate warrior of Imladris might pay the price for his lord’s indulgence in swordplay. Allowing Elrond to undo what damage his hands had inflicted would preserve his skill for future need. 

“Take a deep breath?” Elrond asked in his bedside voice, eyes on where his hand rested over Elrohir’s battle-stained smock.

Elrohir did, and found the movement entirely painless. Elrond laughed, easy and relaxed as he rarely was these days, and laid an arm around Elrohir’s shoulders to steer him towards the breakfast laid out for them on a trestle table nearby. Elrond and Elrohir were the habitual early birds in a family of late risers, and their dawn time meals together were a habit of many long-years. Breaking his fast with his younger son tended to leave the Lord of Imladris in a gentled mood. His counsellors had taken to scheduling the more contentious meetings whenever Elrohir was home from a campaign. 

Elrond and Elrohir were alone, or as near to alone as the Lord of Rivendell could afford to be in these dark times. Elrond’s contingent of Fëanorian guards no longer left his side. Even now a pair of them, decked out in full battle dress and armed to the teeth, stood at the far end of the garden. So ancient were these warriors that the light of the Two Trees shone in their eyes. Once they were Maedhros’ personal guard, kinslayers many times over, fiercely loyal to Elrond, and Elrond alone. Their lord’s foster-son was now the last of Fëanor’s heirs in Middle-earth. 

The guards kept a polite distance, an illusion of privacy, but they were close enough to leap to Elrond’s aid in case of trouble. And trouble there was aplenty, of late. Elrohir was newly returned from overseeing yet another long reconnaissance mission into heavily contested territory. He had compiled a formal report and explained its conclusions to the council, but on these occasions Elrond never failed to speak with Elrohir at length and in private, both to detail the state of war-torn Eriador and check his son’s well-being. 

Elrohir sank into his chair and poured them both wine, generously watering it. A single maple leaf, a lacy star of perfect vermillion, fluttered down from the tree overhead. Elrohir caught it by the stem to twirl it between his fingers. Autumn’s golden dawn set its delicate splash of red alight against white linen tablecloth and fine porcelain, pale blue as a robin’s egg. For an instant he lost himself in the ethereal beauty of Imladris, so welcome after his journey’s grim, violent despair. 

Elrond was patient. He understood the sentiment well enough. In silence he took up a loaf of white bread, still warm from the oven, and cut it to lay a slice on Elrohir’s plate before buttering his own. He did not speak until Elrohir managed to extract himself from his own mind with an apologetic smile, and reached for a steaming bowl of pheasant in almond sauce. 

“Stay in the garden when we are finished, and rest in memory for the day,” Elrond said. “You need it. Did you sleep at all, on the road?” 

Elrohir shook his head. “We only rested the horses. The land crawls with enemies, Orcs and Hillmen both. I thought it wise to keep moving.”

“Nonetheless your company suffered few casualties. Has Angmar gone quiet?” Elrond asked.

Elrohir’s fingers fiddled with his sleeves seemingly of their own accord. He had to make a conscious effort to still them when he noticed Elrond’s look of concern. “With a purpose. The Witch-king seeks to evade our eyes. I cannot say what manner of foul scheme this is, but I like it not at all.” 

He took a deep, grounding breath as he struggled to put to words these past weeks of nameless, insubstantial dread, crawling like rot beneath the skin. “Something is wrong.”

Elrond did not bat an eye at the grim prediction. He simply cut a wedge from a small wheel of aged cheese as if Elrohir’s words were entirely expected. The lack of surprise was a terror in itself. 

Elrohir had barely taken his first bite of tender, well-spiced meat when a small, pained gasp sounded from across the table. He looked up to find Elrond frozen into stillness, eyes blank and distant. His right hand clamped his left forefinger as if something pained him there, but Elrohir saw no blood dripping from the white-knuckled fist. 

In less than a heartbeat the Fëanorian guards were beside their lord, surrounding Elrond with swords drawn. Elrohir was both terrified and relieved to see no telltale blue shine on the blades. No Orcs, then. Here was an assault that could not be parried with arms.

“Stand down,” Elrohir commanded as he reached out to touch Elrond with hand and mind, both movements slow and careful. Before he could pry open Elrond’s clenched fist his father gasped, then gave a deep, rattling sigh. 

The Lord of Imladris returned to the here and now to find himself scrutinized by his son and his equally white-faced guards. 

“I am well.” Elrond addressed the Fëanorians in a decidedly lordly tone. “As you were.”

These warriors were no fools. They knew trouble when it stared them in the face. Nonetheless they obeyed their orders, and retreated to the bottom of the garden. 

Elrond and Elrohir were alone at the table once more, and the wafting smells of good food only served to heighten the dread beating through Elrohir’s veins like the drums of war. Every ounce of warriors’ instinct he possessed was screaming in alarm. 

Elrond calmly filled his cup from the silver decanter of heady Gondorian red, and drank it down unwatered. 

“Fear not, Elrohir. This was but a vision, a fickle thing, perhaps real and perhaps not,” he said at last, voice hoarse with an emotion Elrohir could not fathom.

He shot his father a silent look of disbelief. Something was clearly wrong, and he was about to press the matter when he spotted movement from the corner of his eye. He whipped around, hand on the hidden dagger in his boot. 

Erestor came down the path to the house, formal robes billowing behind him as his long legs ate up the lawn at a pace barely short of outright running. Both Elrond and Elrohir stiffened in their chairs. None but his formidable chief counselor would disturb the Lord of Imladris at a family meal, and never over trivial matters.

Something was very wrong indeed. 

\----

Instead of the formal reception room, Elrond wisely chose a private audience chamber to receive their unexpected guest. 

The casements stood wide open to a gentle wind, rich with the scent of cool, wet leaves and a view of lush canopy at the peak of its autumn raiment. Birch in fluttering gold, oak in ochre, beech a deep, luscious russet. This entire wing of the house had been angled for a perfect view of one of the valley’s falls, elegant as a ribbon of white lace. The song of water clattering on stone mingled with the chirps of a cloud of finches come to feast on the rich bounty of honeysuckle berries growing against the house.

And yet, Elrohir could not take his eyes off the Dúnedain warrior’s cloak. It was good northern wool, spun and woven with that slight edge of roughness typical of Mortal work. The cloth had originally been dyed a rich dark green with a lavish silver trim. Black Orc-blood, now dried into stiff crusts, had soaked it so thoroughly that the bell of fabric might have stood on its own had its wearer chosen to abandon it. Small flakes of the vile stuff were peeling away to litter the gleaming parquet floor as he moved. The Mortal, Brannor was his name, was beyond noticing. A steward had offered to take the soiled garment when he entered the house, but he had clung to it as if it were his last worldly possession. 

As the man’s story progressed Elrohir realized that was indeed the case. 

Brannor was alone to appear before the Lord and Lady of Imladris and their hastily summoned counsellors. The remainder of his party of refugees, the battered remains of a battalion defending the great keep of Amon Sûl, had been taken directly to the House of Healing where Lindalië and her staff of healers would salvage what they could. 

Elladan, ever the convivial host, elegantly resolved the issue of the soiled cloak by plying Brannor with fortified wine until the liquor relaxed him enough to relinquish his grisly garb. The gambeson he wore underneath stank to high heaven of mud and cold sweat, but all present far preferred it to the stench of Orc. 

“The Witch-king set every last Orc in the Northern Wastes on us,” Brannor explained, wild-eyed. “Cardolan is razed to the ground, not a stone left standing upon another, and Arthedain will soon suffer that same fate. Amon Sûl came under siege. Before the end my company was sent out through a concealed tunnel to seek aid from the Elves. Alas, we are too late! From the hills we watched King Arveleg fall to the Witch-king’s mace. The Witch-king broke his body in sight of the keep, and the men were struck with despair. The tower is fallen.” 

Brannor’s stance grew stiff, his back ramrod straight. His hands shook around his silver wine goblet. 

“The beasts impaled the king upon the pinnacle before they set fire to the tower. We saw him burn from miles away as we fled … ” 

His voice broke, and the proud Dúnadan turned his face to the wall for an instant, drawing a deep breath.

The images seared into the Man’s mind made Elrohir’s hand shoot to his hip in deeply ingrained muscle memory before he could master himself. It was a foolish gesture—Imladris was a peaceful house, and his sword was in the armoury. He suddenly felt ridiculously defenseless wearing courtly robes of heavy night-blue velvet instead of his gear of war. 

That same rush of dismay swept the gathered company. King Arveleg was Elrond’s distant kinsman and his death was grievous, but ultimately little more than another snapped link in a long chain of deceased Mortal kings. The grave heart of the matter was the loss of the strategic fortress of Amon Sûl and its treasure: not merely one of the Palantíri, but the Master Stone of the North, the one to see into all others. For it to fall into the Witch-king’s hands would be such a devastating blow to the Dúnedain that it might well lose them the war.

Celebrían was the first Elf to dare the question weighing everyone’s mind. “Our deepest condolences at the loss of your liege, Lord Brannor. The Elves will remember King Arveleg and his valiant deeds until Arda’s end. Tell us, what of the palantír?”

The Lady of Imladris seemed gentleness personified in her elegant dress of moss-green silk. Silver hair cascaded down her back in gem-pinned waves, but her fingers bore archer’s calluses. Celebrían’s knuckles had turned white where she gripped the carved armrests of her chair. 

Brannor sent her a look of outright reproach, but he was wiser than to offend his Elvish hosts with rebuke.

“The Seeing Stone was carried back to Fornost in retreat, my lady. It now falls to Prince— _ King  _ Araphor.”

For an instant Elrond beheld the Mortal with stunned bewilderment before regaining his mask of lordly politeness. “Araphor is eighteen years old. Surely Queen Isilmë will reign in her son’s stead?”

Brannor sent the Lord of Imladris a look of bleak despair. “I cannot say, lord. At this point we know not whether Fornost still exists.” 

  
  


> _ A great host came out of Angmar in 1409, and crossing the river entered Cardolan and surrounded Weathertop. The Dúnedain were defeated and Arveleg was slain. The Tower of Amon Sûl was burned and razed; but the palantír was saved and carried back in retreat to Fornost, Rhudaur was occupied by evil Men subject to Angmar, and the Dúnedain that remained there were slain or fled west. _
> 
> _ \-- The Return of the King, LoTR Appendix A, Annals of the Kings and Rulers: Eriador, Arnor, and the Heirs of Isildur _


	2. Chapter 2

To soothe both Brannor’s injured pride and his troubled heart, Elladan personally walked the Dúnadan to the House of Healing to visit his injured men. 

Despite his battle-stained state Brannor had a proud and noble bearing as he fell into step with his Elvish host for the walk through the sprawling house. Imladris was at its fairest in autumn, when the last vestiges of summer sunshine lingered in cloisters already floored with the pale gold of fallen leaves. Brannor drew their spicy scent deep into his lungs, and Elladan could see tension bleeding from his shoulders, to be replaced with bone-deep exhaustion. A fine time for smoothing ruffled feathers.

“Forgive us our directness, Lord Brannor. News is hard to come by in troubled times, and all here are keen to hear how Arthedain fares against our Enemy.”

“No offence was taken. In war not even the Elves can afford to hold on to the pleasantries of gentler days. The Lord and Lady of Rivendell may be as direct as they please, and I shall thank them for it if they aid Arthedain in its plight!”

A ghost of a smile played across Brannor’s bearded face. ”I was pleased to see your brother Elrohir among those present. Our minstrels still sing of his valour in breaking the Witch-king’s siege of Rivendell. Perhaps your father will send him to Fornost to face our common foe once more?”

Elladan knew he had failed to keep the slap of—of what precisely? displeasure? envy? off his face when Brannor’s eyes flitted to his in frank curiosity. This Mortal was no mere soldier, but a noble well acquainted with the intrigues of courtly life. Elladan kept his voice carefully neutral. It would not do to send Brannor home carrying baseless rumours of dissent between the sons of Elrond. 

“Whether Imladris will deploy its troops remains for my father to decide.” 

They had reached the path that wound from the main house to the House of Healing through a half-wild shadow garden of moss sheltered by fiery red maples. A small brook murmured down towards the Bruinen over cleverly placed rocks. The water’s song seemed unnaturally loud as awkward silence descended between them, and Elladan quickly filled it with distraction.

“Do you have kin in Fornost?”

Brannor flinched as if struck. “My wife and son were among those who sheltered in the crypts beneath Amon Sûl’s great tower. Whether they were trapped there by the flames or escaped with the company headed to Fornost, I do not know.”

Elladan recalled the fortress of Amon Sûl. He had visited the great stronghold of the North many a time on Elrond’s business, to convene with this king or that lord. Walls upon walls of jet-black stone hard as adamant, built sky-high without gap or crack by the lost arts of Westernesse. He shuddered to imagine the power and malice that might raze a keep so strongly warded. The loremasters of Imladris had spent a Mortal lifetime debating the true identity of the Witch-king, but there could be no doubt that he was a mighty foe indeed. Brannor’s family was unlikely to have escaped his wrath. 

The Mortal’s face was hard, closed like a walled fortress. 

“Your journey to Rivendell may yet be their salvation, if we can relieve them at Fornost,” Elladan said.

Brannor did not answer him, his eyes firmly on the path’s moss-edged flagstones. Clearly this talk had only brought more pain, and Elladan regretted that he had no better comfort to offer the man.

The great double doors to the House of Healing were cast from green-tarnished bronze depicting the gardens of Lórien in Valinor. One stood ajar to reveal a glimpse of the frenetic activity within. When Elladan and Brannor stepped through into the house’s courtyard, the bustle assaulted every sense. 

White-smocked healers darted to and fro, some bearing stretchers, others the various menacing tools of their trade or baskets of linens both clean and red-soaked. The air was thick with the coppery tang of blood, pungent herbs and distilled spirits. The lightly wounded awaited their turns on benches in the shaded gallery. From several treatment rooms sounded Elvish voices raised in various Songs of healing. The Singing could not quite mask the snarl and rattle of a surgeon’s bone saw. From one windowless room on the far side of the courtyard came the sound of mourning—great, wailing sobs. A brother perhaps, or a friend close as one. 

Brannor’s dejected air fled him in an instant. Elladan watched his sullen guest change into a stern, efficient captain as he knelt beside the nearest stretcher and spoke softly to an ashen-faced lad who could not have seen twenty summers. 

Elladan, who was neither healer nor soldier, found himself no longer needed. He gently let the great bronze doors fall closed behind him and breathed the garden’s clean, mossy scent, his heart heavy in his chest. 

Canissë had been lounging in the dappled sunlight on one of the carved marble benches, still as the stone itself save for one slender hand drawing her dagger across a whetstone. 

Her sharp, pure Noldorin face had been called beautiful at times, by Mortals who remarked upon such things. An Elf might have thought the nose too aquiline, if not for four Ages of war and sorrow shining from light-filled eyes older than the Sun and Moon, lifting the ancient warrior beyond mere aesthetics. 

Canissë had been Elladan’s personal guard since the day he took up public life as Elrond’s heir, yet he still felt that tiny shiver of awe as he sat down beside the Elf who was once Fëanor’s own lieutenant.

She now cast him a knowing look. “Peace, Elladan. You will not want for occupation after today’s tidings. There is no need to begrudge Elrohir his.”

Elladan shook his head with curt, sharp frustration. As Elrond’s firstborn son and heir, these dark times found him safe within the valley, hoarded like a swaddled jewel in its box while his younger brother won battlefield renown. Canissë was too perceptive to miss Elladan’s growing resentment, though he hoped it eluded others. 

He was quick to cover the flash of hot shame that washed through him at his own spite, and decisively changed the subject. “What do you make of this Brannor?”

Canissë cast him a knowing look, but seemed loath to go against his wishes. “Some strange fate is on him, and he knows it.“ 

Three ages after she sailed to Middle-earth, red-plumed and bloody-handed in Fëanor’s train, her regard still held that piercing light of Valinor. Many in Imladris found that gaze hard to bear, but Elladan had been glad for her keen insight many a time.

Elladan thought for a moment, as a maple leaf drifted down from the canopy overhead, perfectly shaped and red as a clot of new-shed blood. With a swift flick of his hand he plucked it from the air to twirl the stem between his fingers and breathe in the spiced, lively scent of wild forests. 

He felt better for something to organize, at least. “Put a guard on Brannor. I want our stealthiest tracker hounding every step he takes within this valley.”

“Consider it done.“ Canissë was quick enough to acknowledge Elladan’s order, but something like compassion darted through her mind even as she spoke. 

Elladan knew her words were no lie, but an untruth nonetheless. A heartbeat later he understood, and his fist clenched on the leaf in a blaze of hot, shameful anger at finding himself superfluous once more.

Brannor was under guard already, and had been for hours. At Elrohir’s orders. 

\----

Elrohir looked up from his harp at the brisk tap of a wooden staff on the path’s leaf-covered flagstones. For an instant he failed to hide his annoyance at the disturbance. His short-lived scowl was met with a smile like a wrinkled apple breaking open. 

“Ah, just the fellow! Well met, son of Elrond. This is a rare opportunity!”

Elrohir had been elusive indeed—he had spent the morning in the House of Healing, speaking at length with Brannor and those among his men left capable of answering questions, and the afternoon ensconced in Glorfindel’s study. Together they had hammered out the foundations of a strategy—one that would need a great deal more thought and tweaking before it would stand up to scrutiny at tomorrow’s privy council. 

With his fingers busy on his harp strings Elrohir’s mind could fly far and free. He had sought seclusion in the western garden, a half-wild bower of birches sheltering fresh green ferns and delicate orchids. A well-placed bench of carved stone offered stunning views of the Hidden Valley beneath autumn’s pale blue evening sky and Eärendil rising above the western walls. 

This garden was open to all who wished to enjoy it, but the denizens of Imladris knew better than to disturb Elrohir when he went to play there on the eve of a campaign. His unexpected visitor seemed blissfully unaware of this tacit understanding. Elrohir politely refrained from showing further annoyance and stood to welcome his father’s guest. 

“Well met, Mithrandir. How may I help you?”

Strange birds of every possible feather flocked to the generous hospitality of Elrond’s house. Over the years Elrohir had observed a colourful procession of remarkable guests wind its way through his father’s halls. Mithrandir was among the more unusual strays to wander into the valley. 

On their first meeting Elrohir had found the Grey Pilgrim rather disconcerting. He had never met one of the Ainur, unlike his elders who lived through the Exile or the War of Wrath. Mithrandir’s absurd guise of a wizened Mortal greybeard—a weather-worn face and the bushiest eyebrows Elrohir had ever seen on anyone who was not a Dwarf—stood in jarring contrast to the immortal fire burning bright within. Elrohir knew not whether his unease sprung from the inherent strangeness of the Ainur or Mithrandir’s personal peculiarities. To eyes that could pierce the veil of his Mortal flesh Mithrandir burned bright indeed, and in the light he cast all things grew strange to Elrohir’s eyes. 

Upon Mithrandir’s first visit, straight from the ship in Lindon, many in Imladris had shared Elrohir’s reservations. This was not the first Maia to walk among the Elves of Middle-earth seeking to learn and teach. Annatar had taught the survivors of Eregion a lesson indeed—one they would never forget. Mithrandir would have found little welcome in Elrond’s house if not for Glorfindel. 

The reborn hero had hailed Elrond’s suspect visitor as his old friend Olórin, wisest among the Maiar and once the companion of Irmo and Nienna in the Gardens of Lórien. The emissary of Aman tactfully declined Elrond’s offer of a home in Imladris and a seat on his council, but chose to range far and wide across Middle-earth, vanishing from the west for long-years at a time. Where he went Mithrandir would not say, but he always made his way back to the House of Elrond to find ease from his journeys and take counsel with the High Elves. Elrohir had never caught the greybeard at anything that might be construed as political maneuvering or attempts to influence Elrond and Celebrían’s private counsels. He fiercely hoped that today’s ouvertures would not prove a first.

Mithrandir smiled, and it was as if the midday sun broke through clouds. “Might I have your company for a time? I am much grieved by today’s news, and I would hear the thoughts of Elrond’s warriors. I will make it worth your while.”

He dove into the wide sleeves of his grey robe, and for a brief and miserable instant Elrohir wondered how he should tactfully refuse some bribe in exchange for his father’s secrets. When Mithrandir’s calloused hand emerged he held neither gold nor gems, but strange paraphernalia. 

Two long-stemmed objects ending in cups carved from cherry wood came into view. Mithrandir proceeded to stuff them with a brown, thread-like substance from a small silver box. Judging by the dried herb’s aromatic scent it was Sweet Galenas. With a muttered whisper both briefly caught fire and extinguished themselves to remain smouldering. Fragrant blue smoke rose to the roof of shivering birch leaves above their heads. Mithrandir smiled like a cat in a dairy house before handing one over to Elrohir, who accepted the burning thing out of sheer politeness with a bewildered nod of thanks.

“Pipe-weed! An indulgence of the river-folk in the Vales of Anduin. You’ll find the habit most enjoyable—a worthy compensation for being kept from your harp.” 

There was nothing for it but to copy Mithrandir as he took the pipe’s narrow end between his lips like a bottle-fed lamb, and breathed in the burning weed’s vapours. In the next heartbeat Elrohir’s tongue seared with burning pain from the hot smoke, tears shot to his eyes and it was all he could do not to cough up his lungs like a sickly Mortal. He had to blink ferociously against the tears that would have run down his face. Once his vision was restored he found Mithrandir eying him with rapt, cheerful expectation, and could not bear to disappoint the Istar. 

“It is ... unique. Unlike anything I have tasted before!”

Mithrandir’s wrinkled smile lit up the darkening garden.

“Few Elves seem to care for a pipe. I am glad to finally come upon one with a taste for it!”

In the interest of diplomacy a second draw at the infernal device seemed inevitable. Elrohir took a shallower breath this time. The smoke stung less, and he managed to keep his smile and his dignity intact. 

Mithrandir puffed, muttered in Valarin, and from his mouth sailed a tall ship, smoky sails taut in a wind of illusion. His mortal form had a warm laugh, a deep baritone, and Elrohir could not help but join him. It was disarming, this unquenchable fount of merriness—childlike and yet not: Mithrandir’s joy sprung from great wisdom and many bitter sorrows. 

With a smile lingering on his face Elrohir turned to his unexpected visitor.

“That is remarkable. Even our chief minstrel could not call up such vivid images—if Glaeriel could ever be convinced to take up a pipe.”

Mithrandir remained silent for a moment, taking another lungful of smoke and relishing it, his grey eyes closed like a contented cat. When at last he spoke his voice was gentle.

“Elrohir, are you satisfied with life?”

Elrohir was perplexed. Nine long-years of errantry at many a great court had not prepared him for this unfathomable Maia. The Lord of Darkness and his army of rabid Orcs had Arnor by the throat, and yet Mithrandir saw fit to interrupt the strategic planning of Elrond’s armed forces for  _ this _ ?

“The entire North is in peril, and so is Imladris. I will not be satisfied until my home and people are safe.”

Mithrandir turned to look Elrohir in the eye, and he suddenly felt like one of Arwen’s gemstones, turned this way and that beneath a magnifying glass in search of fault lines.

“In Aman, princes do not receive their fathers’ crowns unless by strange and bitter fates. The sons of Men have the certainty of inheritance. You and Elladan have one foot in both while your Choice remains unmade. Have neither of you ever desired to be lord in your own right?”

“I have little use for such speculations. Imladris is not Tirion, and Elladan and I no leisured princelings. Neither are we lords of Men.” 

A sinking feeling of foreboding came over Elrohir when the strange question’s terrifying implications struck him.

“Did the Valar send you to extract our Choice from us? Why this sudden haste?” 

Mithrandir shook his grey head. “That is not my purpose. The hour of your Choice remains set by your father leaving these shores.” 

He turned to look Elrohir in the eye, open and unveiled. “Elladan chafes at his fate, and he is less than subtle about it. Those old enough to have seen this before are concerned, and rightly so. It is how great houses are broken.” 

Another puff of blue smoke rose at Elrohir’s shoulder, this time shaped like a flying dragon. In all his years as an officer Elrohir had thought himself calm and even-tempered in rebuking the impudent, the foolish and the incompetent alike, yet this Maia’s presumption somehow unleashed a hot, irrational anger. 

Elrohir had no need to ask which counsellor’s loose lips ran away with him. With a brusque jerk of barely suppressed rage he dropped the pipe beside him on the bench. Glorfindel’s loyalty should have been to Elrond and his House instead of this impudent Maia, and Elrohir would remind him of it as soon as he finished this conversation. 

“You know my brother not at all,” he replied, stiff and overly formal, “if you believe he would yearn for the ways of Men. Elladan is faithful to our House and its sworn task. Faithful to a fault.”

Mithrandir had a way of drawing forth confidences. Elrohir was shocked at hearing himself imply—to an outsider, no less— that Elrond was at fault for his dogged insistence that Elladan remain in Imladris, held back in safety to take up lordship in case of his father’s demise, while Elrohir rode to deeds of renown on the battlefield. Father and son had fought bitterly when Imladris came under siege. Elladan had obeyed Elrond then, but the coming battle for Arthedain would soon raise his old bitterness from a shallow grave.

Mithrandir seemed unfazed by Elrohir’s rebuke, because he stood to reverently touch the tears running down the face of a moss-covered statue of Nienna in its bower of trailing birch branches.

“As often in such matters, neither and both are in the wrong. Enabling a loved one’s errors is a poor service. You are your father’s most loyal captain, yet in this matter you should do more than execute his orders. A cracking wall is best rebuilt  _ before  _ it falls to rubble.”

Mithrandir’s face grew shadowed with a terrible foreboding, and a cold shiver ran down Elrohir’s spine. “You must mend this rift, Elrohir, or your House shall face the rising dark divided against itself!”

That same terrifying truth had been haunting Elrohir’s sleepless nights for years. A cold shiver of dread slid down his back, and he knew he was failing to hide it. Mithrandir’s sight was uncomfortably keen. 

“My skill is at making war, not peace,” Elrohir answered. “Between the two of us, Elladan is the diplomat. You should speak to him.”

Mithrandir sat down beside Elrohir once more. He seemed wholly unfazed by Elrohir’s rebuke as he took up the cold, forgotten pipe and stuffed it anew. 

“Such times as these require the unexpected, from all of us.” He handed the strange thing, now merrily belching out a plume of blue smoke, back to Elrohir. “You must expand your repertoire.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back everyone! False Dawn has been almost two years in the making. I was halfway when COVID19 struck, and for a while writing fanfiction fell by the wayside. My story seemed pointless, a luxury for gentler times now become irrelevant.   
> Then, as the bleak and busy weeks went by, it dawned on me that in dark times stories grow more, not less important, because they remind us that there's always hope.  
> I went back to writing, much slower and perhaps less inspired than before, but I managed to get through with the help and encouragement of my wonderful betas Anoriath and Dawn Felagund (they're both excellent writers, so please go read their stories when you have time!)  
> I hope that my writing can brighten this long winter for you, wherever you are. 
> 
> Idrils Scribe
> 
> PS: hearing back from readers makes me a very happy Scribe!


	3. Chapter 3

The council gathered in Elrond’s study, a high, sun-warmed room so bright with colourful Noldorin frescoes that it shone like the inside of a jewelry box. Elladan let his eyes rest on the painted perfection of Gondolin’s spires pricking the heavens. A pair of Great Eagles—every last feather perfectly rendered and trimmed in gilding—wheeled over snow-white towers set against a sky blue as sapphire. 

Across the mother-of-pearl inlay of the council table—yet more bright Fëanorian geometrics - Glorfindel was taking his usual place. He invariably chose the seat beside Erestor, facing the casements with their sweeping view of the Misty Mountains, his back turned to the likeness of his fallen city. 

Glorfindel’s startled slap of agony had been obvious, the day Elrond presented the freshly painted masterpiece to his gathered council. Elladan recalled the moment’s awkwardness, Glorfindel’s barely audible gasp and the smell of drying paint in his nose. Elrond’s dismay, the young artist’s mortification, their hasty insistence on having the reminder of ancient sorrows painted over. 

Glorfindel had adamantly refused his lord’s kindness. “The Eldar should remember the errors of the past,” he declared with his usual flair for the dramatic, “lest they be repeated.” 

With a strange blend of pride and jealousy Elladan noted how set apart Glorfindel and Elrohir seemed, an island of austere warriors’ grey against the autumnal palette of courtly robes. Elrohir seemed wholly unaware of his brother’s scrutiny. His mind thrummed with thought and determination as he leant forward with a focused urgency Elladan only ever felt from him before a battle.

It was Glorfindel who brought forth the fruit of their labour. “The Great East Road will be impassable, but Elrohir can take a company of light cavalry to Fornost Erain across the northern hill country in less than a sennight. He will come to Arnor’s aid if we find them still under siege. Even if he finds the city sacked, he may at least bring you certainty about the fates of the royal family and the Palantir.”

Elrohir nodded his assent in silence. Spread before them on the table was a detailed military map of the Weather Hills, riddled with small, coded ink-marks showing the positions of Angmar’s troops. The additions were so numerous that they rendered the original map nearly unreadable. 

Elladan worried the edge of his own notes, the reed paper soft and supple beneath his fingers. Beside Elrohir’s map, Elladan’s calculations looked unbearably pedestrian, the bland, undignified minutiae of war—rations and arrowheads and horseshoes. 

Elrond gave his youngest son a quick nod of approval. “Take no unnecessary risks, Elrohir,” his voice warm as it rarely was for Elladan. “If Fornost has already fallen you must turn back without revealing your presence. Should you find a siege ongoing, you have my leave to engage the Enemy as you see fit.”

Elrohir barely noticed the fatherly affection, his face hard, and closed. Elladan saw his brother’s dejection for what it was: a single company had little hope of delivering Fornost from Angmar’s gathered might. If he found Fornost under siege, Elrohir would have to turn his warriors around and slink back to Imladris, or risk getting them slaughtered in an attack against overwhelming odds. 

“Your first priority is to safeguard the Royal House,” Elrond continued his instructions to Elrohir with his hands folded on the table, as dispassionate as if he were speaking to any other among his officers. His shoulders were tense though, and his mind in turmoil: the father’s concern hidden beneath the lord’s calm, commanding exterior. 

“Young Araphor is the last of Isildur’s line,” Elrond said. “His survival is paramount. If you deem it needful, evacuate him and the Sceptre of Annúminas to Imladris by any means necessary. Second, but only just, come the Palantíri, both the Fornost stone and the Master Stone of Amon Sûl—assuming it did reach Fornost. These, too, you should carry to Imladris.” 

After a brief, uneasy lull Elrond added, “Elrohir, you must exercise great caution in your words to King Araphor.” His voice grew soft with compassion at what he was about to command. “Imladris has some strength of arms to offer him, but we cannot extend our arm as far as Fornost without leaving our own borders at risk. First we need to secure reinforcements from both Lindon and Lórien. You must assure the young king of the Elves’ unwavering friendship without making premature promises of aid.“

Elladan’s heart leapt. This was wrong, a surefire way to lose Araphor’s trust, and all Arthedain’s with it. He opened his mouth to intervene, but Elrond turned to him and spoke first. “Elladan, you will lead a delegation to Lórien and petition King Amroth for military aid. Use whatever means of persuasion you deem necessary. Amroth is no friend to the Noldor, but Imladris is a Sindarin realm, too, and Lórien needs its allies. He will not see us besieged a third time. You should make it back before Turuhalmë, with at least five battalions of marchwardens.”

So this was it. Elladan would not even remain in Imladris, but be dispatched to even greater safety, like age-old warriors send their youngest companions back to fetch whatever imagined necessity springs to mind at the first sign of Orc. He felt his face flush hot at the shame of it.

Celebrían unknowingly drove the knife in deeper. “Amroth is my friend. We were young together, and he has not forgotten it. I will give you letters for him, Elladan.” 

Elladan breathed deeply, lest he blurt out a rebuke so outrageous it would ruin all his chances.

Celebrían failed to notice because she had turned to Arwen, who had followed the proceedings with mounting unease. “You should go to Lórien with your brother’s company.”

Arwen sat up straight, skin pale as clouds against the heavy oxblood velvet of her robes. She reminded Elladan of Galadriel at her most determined. “I am needed in the forges, Mother. Are the warriors to do battle without swords?”

Elrond cut in before Celebrían could reply. “This house is exceedingly well supplied with smiths, but we have but one daughter. I would have you safely behind the lines, if the fortunes of war should turn ill.”

Elrohir drew a sharp breath. Elladan felt the flash of his twin’s disapproval, a twinge of pain at the edges of his mind, but neither of them spoke: Arwen needed no defenders.

She balled her fists below the table, her voice dark with indignation. “You would hide me away like a Dwarf squirrels an ingot? Do you think so little of me that you will not have me beside you at the last?”

Not for the first time Elladan admired his sister’s fierce independence. He himself could not afford it, being the heir and sharing in Elrond’s burden of Vilya’s safekeeping, but oh, how he dreamed of one day speaking his mind like Arwen could!

“I am giving you a great responsibility,” Elrond replied, bemused. “All in this valley who cannot bear arms are to remove to Lórien, and you will take charge of this evacuation. I will not preside over a slaughter of innocents while we can avert it.”

Arwen’s fair face was tense with distaste. “I shall lead in name only,” she retorted, “with Elladan travelling in the same company. All will look to him for guidance while they indulge me by pretending to ask my opinion.  _ His  _ will be the genuine task, to go before King Amroth and secure his aid, once he has delivered his sister and her ladies to safety like a basketful of eggs.”

Arwen’s gaze locked with Elrond’s, both caught in hurt and anger. Celebrían drew breath to steady her voice, but Elladan was quicker. 

His words fractured the uncomfortable silence. “You are no egg, sister, and I no errand-rider.  _ I  _ should ride to Fornost. Araphor knows me, and I have his trust.” 

As the Elves counted time, a mere blink of an eye had gone by since Elladan tutored the young Crown Prince of Arnor. Araphor’s fostering in Imladris had come to an abrupt and premature end when rising danger on the roads forced King Arveleg to hastily recall his heir to Fornost.

Glorfindel sent Elrond a telling look, and another flash of shame flushed Elladan’s cheeks. All of Elrond's children had been thoroughly taught the sword, but Elrohir alone had proven himself in combat. To Elladan swordplay was no more than a diplomatic art, a social lubricant to be indulged in against visiting lords and dignitaries. 

He owned a matching set of blunted weapons with handles of sculpted ivory and fine gilding along the blades, to be brought out into the gardens on those golden summer evenings when some Mortal prince or other needed entertaining. Elladan had won many a duel over the long years, but none had ever ended in blood. Whether he could hold his own against the Witch-king’s Orcs remained to be seen. Perhaps he would share his brother’s gift for clear-headed command and battlefield pragmatism, but he certainly lacked Elrohir’s extensive experience with leading troops into battle. 

Elrohir leapt in to spare Elladan from embarrassment. His smile was just a tad too jovial to be genuine. “Then join me, brother! Long has it been since last we rode out together.”

His words struck Elrond and Celebrían like a blow. Shocked silence filled the room, but then Erestor was quick to break the grim reality of it. “We cannot risk both sons of this House travelling in a single party. One of you may ride out, but the other must be kept safe. You should stay here, Elladan”

Elladan’s eyes sought Celebrían, then darted back to Elrond. Neither offered him any hope. “If my skills are found wanting,” he retorted past the knot of anger in his throat, “you have no one but yourselves to blame. No party that includes Canissë will fall short of military expertise. Let her handle the Orcs, and I shall deal with Araphor. The boy calls me friend. Even in his distress he will listen to me. Not Elrohir.”

This was nothing more than the truth. Elrohir had been away on various military campaigns more often than not during Araphor’s fleeting sojourn in Imladris. Whenever he briefly returned to the valley he was inclined to seek healing for his wounds of body and spirit, and the calm company of Elves—not a rambunctious Mortal princeling whose mind and mouth overflowed with a ceaseless stream of questions. Araphor had been awestruck by Elrond’s formidable warrior son. What little conversation they had shared at the high table never went beyond a superficial exchange of courtly pleasantries.

Elrond’s face remained expressionless, seemingly unfazed, and Elladan wanted to howl. How it smarted! So little recognition for all his painstaking work with the coltish boy the King of Arthedain had sent to Imladris to be tutored. While Elladan laboured to shape young Araphor into a man worthy of kingship, Elrohir had barely noticed the child’s presence. 

Elrohir knew it, “Elladan has the right of it, Father! The crux is not reaching Fornost, but what to say once there. He, not I, will serve you best.” Humble and generous words, and yet somehow they failed to soothe the sharp spike of Elladan’s jealousy.

Elrohir turned to their sister and smiled that sweet smile he kept only for her. “And we all know that Arwen is perfectly capable of wrangling Amroth.”

Elladan knew not what came over him, but he swept to his feet before Elrond could refuse and put an end to all his hopes. He came to stand before his father’s chair like a petitioner, or a man putting forth a challenge. A beam of golden afternoon light fell through the high windows to set the maroon velvet of his robes aglow, red as devouring flames. Elladan stood awash in that fire, proud and defiant. 

Long enough had he abided by Elrond’s will, obeying his father’s every word while his rightful share of fame and glory passed him by. He would not, could not bear the humiliation of yet another rebuke. Long-standing and bitter was this quarrel, and today at last they had reached its end—Elrond had refused Elladan once too often.

By the startled look in his eyes, he knew it well enough. 

Elrond’s final words shattered the breathless silence, grave as the Doomsman’s voice. 

“So be it.”

\----

Brannor had found little peace in the Last Homely House. The man had wandered the halls all day, trailed by his invisible guards as he paced with the restless energy of a pained animal. 

Elladan found him in one of the reading rooms adjoining the library. Brannor stood eyeing a glass-fronted cabinet with rapt fascination, and Elladan winced inwardly when he remembered its contents. 

On his approach the Mortal’s eyes flashed with barely veiled indignation. “Greetings, Lord Elladan. May I ask how the Elves came by an heirloom of the Northern Kingdom?”

From the safety of their case the shards of Narsil glimmered in the autumn sun. The ancient sword was long shattered, and yet it seemed untouched by time, unrusted, lethally sharp.

“Which kingdom?” Elladan could not keep from asking, though he did see the grief at the root of Brannor’s prickiness. “Three quarreling kings divided Elendil’s broken blade. When Rhudaur fell and Cardolan was overrun, we of Rivendell retrieved their pieces before the Witch-king could. Are we wrong to safeguard them until Arnor’s rightful king is restored?” 

Brannor cast him an inscrutable look. “Will the Elves be the judge of that?”

“Peace, my friend!” Elladan answered, eager to change the subject. “I did not seek you out to debate Mankind’s ancient quarrels. I bring news: my father has tasked me with leading a company to aid Fornost.” 

So far, Brannor had borne his grievous circumstances rather stoically, but now it seemed a thin veneer over something much like panic. “Why does he not send your brother?!” he demanded, suddenly looking savage and more than a little dangerous. 

Elladan sensed his hidden guards’ sharp, focused alarm, their knuckles tightening about their weapons. The air grew thick with tension. One suspect move would now spell Brannor’s death. He needed to end this, and quickly.

He straightened himself to his full Noldorin height. “When I last looked, Elrond Peredhel ruled Imladris, not Brannor of Arthedain. My father will send what aid he deems necessary.”

Brannor was a fine warrior, and he knew when to retreat. His tone grew placating even if his words were anything but. “With all due respect, my lord, but your brother has defeated the Witch-king before. We placed our hopes in him doing so once more!”

Elladan managed to keep insult off his face, if only because Elrohir’s warriors would doubtlessly report every word of this conversation. 

“You will not want for skill with arms,” he replied. “Canissë, my second-in-command, was Elrohir’s lieutenant on that occasion. For many mortal lifetimes before that she was his teacher. Will you dismiss a warrior who stood beside Isildur at Barad-dûr?” 

This seemed to calm Brannor down enough to be reasoned with, but beneath his seeming acceptance lurked something else, quickly hidden like a darting fish flits beneath murky water. 

Before Elladan could probe any deeper, Brannor bowed and touched his hand to his forehead in contrition. “Forgive my rudeness, lord. Between you and her, Arthedain shall be well served.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I hope that the week has been kind to all of you, and that you enjoyed this chapter. What are your thoughts about the family dynamic so far? Will Elladan's long expected journey set things right between him and Elrond? And what will Elrohir do with himself with both his siblings gone?  
> Comments make my day, and kudos are always nice!  
> See you soon,  
> Idrils Scribe


	4. Chapter 4

“Be watchful. Be wary.” Long experience allowed Elrohir to keep emotion from his voice. “You defend the heir of our House and the hope of the Dúnedain. May the stars shine upon your faces.”

Elrohir’s selection of warriors for Elladan’s escort were seated in a half-circle around him. He had chosen a mingled company, drawn from all the Elvish kindreds that called Imladris home. They received their brief in a sombre silence, faces set in identical frowns of grim determination. One thing only did these warriors have in common: they were the best in their respective fields. 

Borndis sat transfixed by the great map of Eriador covering the wall behind Elrohir, her dark eyes glued to the thing as if trying to memorize it. Elrohir knew for a fact that the Silvan chieftainess could draw a more detailed one blindfolded. Borndis was to lead the party’s scouts. Her second-in-command, Glingaer, was braiding a willow-withy with slender fingers stained moss-green by years of forest life. He was an ancient Laiquendë from Ossiriand who rarely set foot indoors, and never for trivialities. Borndis and Glingaer might seem rustic primitives beside the Noldor in their shining armour, but every captain who ever waged war in a forest knew better. Under leaf and branch these Wood-elves reigned supreme.

One might have heard a pin drop in the solemn silence of the warriors’ hall as Elrohir rose to salute his people. There were no questions. Chair legs scraped the flagstones as the company filed from the hall, leaving their commander to silent contemplation.

Elrohir drew a deep breath. It was done. He felt strange and shaken, ill-prepared to face the bustle outside, and turned instead to examine the map behind him.

Like every work of Elvish hands, the map was as beautiful as it was accurate. Even in Elrond’s house it was considered a marvel, wrought by the finest Noldorin cartographers. Elrohir’s fingers traced the sinuous spine of the Misty Mountains, each contour line drawn with care and every individual peak capped in white; the Hoarwell running silver and azure in its deep-carved canyon; the dark, pine-covered bulk of the Weather Hills rendered in exquisite detail. There stood a small, perfectly drawn Amon Sûl, the great keep of Arnor that was no more. At last Elrohir’s searching hand reached the gilt-edged towers and battlements of Fornost Erain, the City of Kings, where Elladan would fulfill this desperate errand that might restore the balance between the Sons of Elrond. 

Elrohir could not muster even a trace of gladness at the thought. 

There was no sound but the air itself stirring in the empty space of the hall behind his back, but Elrohir turned to face whoever would wish a private word with him. 

“Those left behind may walk the hardest path.” Canissë’s gaze was keen as light glinting off a blade. “I will guard your brother with my life.” 

Elrohir knew he had failed to hide the darkness in his face. Elladan’s personal guard was among the eldest of his officers, and after so many years he still found the ancient Fëanorian somewhat overawing.

When Elrohir first took up captaincy, finding himself set above a warrior of Canissë’s stature had seemed absurd, and he a mere boy presuming to command his elders. 

Canissë had laughed heartily when he told her so. “Modesty becomes you, son of Elrond,” she answered him, a twinkle in her eye. “I have seen far more pretentious and less talented brats stuffed into a captain’s surcoat. Besides, you are a star’s grandson, a symbol and a sign to us all. We might as well put you to use. Fear not—I will not let you do anything truly idiotic.”

She had kept her word then, and she would keep it now. No warrior in Elrond’s house could be a better protector for Elladan, save perhaps Glorfindel himself.

Canissë, too, seemed distraught. Her slender hand rose and came to rest on Elrohir’s shoulder, warm and heavy through the woollen cloth of his uniform. She had never touched him in such a manner, and he nearly startled at the realization that Canissë loved the children of Elrond’s House as her own, for better or worse. 

Her life had been long and lonely, from the day Fëanor’s stolen fleet carried her into three Ages of blood-soaked exile. Not for the first time Elrohir found himself wondering what had become of the spouse whose spirit still lingered in her eyes. Did he repent at the Doom of Mandos? Reach Beleriand under the Stars to be devoured by its wars? Or had he set her aside in disgust, and if so, at which particular kinslaying? 

In the next breath she saluted him, smartly as ever, her back ramrod-straight. “Be you well, my lord, until next we meet.”

\----

  
  


Elrohir was the one to dress Elladan for the journey ahead. Canissë would normally be charged with securing every last buckle of her charge’s armour, but he had pulled rank on her. 

The great armoury of Imladris had fallen quiet after the double muster of Elladan’s company and the battalion that would escort Arwen and her delegation to Lórien. The sons of Elrond stood alone in the solemn, high-roofed space where the remains of three ages of their people’s Long Defeat stood on display. 

Elrohir had grown from apprentice to full-fledged warrior to captain in these timbered halls, but he had never forgotten the silent awe of his first visit. The high windows remained perpetually shuttered to shield ancient banners and coats of arms from light’s inevitable decay. Daylight fell through in beams, cutting the space into an ordered lattice of light and shadow from which the past leapt out at every turn.

Elu Thingol’s great banner hung from the rafters, a winged moon of mithril blazing against a black field of stars. The standard had been carried from the sack of Doriath by Elwing’s people, only to be taken from burning Sirion by Fëanor’s guilt-ridden sons, along with two young boys. Fëanorian artisans had mended it with honour for Elrond and Elros to deploy as they rode from the kinslayers, doomed yet beloved, into the High King’s keeping. 

There seemed little contradiction in having it displayed side by side with the eight-pointed star of Celebrimbor’s banner from Eregion. This, too, had been carried from a ravaged city by refugees to become an heirloom, a tangible memory kept in Elrond’s house.

In the centre of the hall hung Gil-galad’s great war banner, a star-strewn sky of royal blue. Below it stood the High King’s twisted and blackened armour upon a stand. Elrond won a great victory in Mordor, but he would not allow himself or any other in Imladris to forget its price. Elrohir knew that his father stood in this very spot in silent contemplation on each anniversary of that fateful day, when an age of the world had ended in the spilled blood of kings. 

Elrohir carefully lowered a padded arming doublet of sage-green wool over Elladan’s head. He bent low to run cords of braided hithlain through the lacing holes beneath Elladan’s arms, then carefully adjusted them so the garment fit him like a glove. Elladan stood perfectly still, arms outstretched. He was used well enough to being dressed in this manner.

Elrond may have abandoned the arts of war in favour of healing, but his household still honoured the Noldorin traditions from Finwë’s court in Tirion. In times of peace Imladris had seen warriors of all realms and kindreds compete in splendid jousts. The sons of Elrond would ride into the tiltyard arrayed as princes of the Elder Days, and warriors many years their senior were wary of their fierceness. This very hall still held the twins’ long-unused sets of jousting armour: identical winged helmets and cuirasses embossed with gold-inlaid Noldorin geometrics. Such splendid finery was worse than useless against the Enemy. 

With Elladan’s gambeson laced to Elrohir’s satisfaction he turned to the oak chest, carved with a frieze of running horses, standing ready on the sideboard. Out came Elrohir’s own mail. He alone owned a second set of armour, deceptively simple and unadorned. It had been covered in a dull grey-green patina, designed to dissolve into the craggy rock and coarse brushland of Eriador’s desolate heaths. 

With care Elrohir lifted his mail from the chest and let it swing from his fingers. The delicate rings sang a melodious song with the motion. Their dull finish appeared to drink in the hall’s muted light. Elladan ran his finger across it with reverence. Before today he had never needed such utilitarian armour. Despite its austere appearance, Elrohir’s hauberk was a masterpiece. Arwen’s peerless hands crafted it to his exact specifications and imbued it with every safeguard and art of stealth a Noldorin weaponsmith might pour into their work. The piece was well-worn, but always repaired to perfection.

“Now let us see if this fits you as well as it does me.” Elrohir’s voice broke the solemnity of the moment. 

It fit, of course. Whatever their differences, Elladan and Elrohir were as identical in face and form as it was possible for living creatures to be. 

Elrohir now carefully placed the gorget around Elladan’s throat. His hands were tender as he lifted the single braid he had made of his brother’s hair from the wide metal collar encircling his neck. 

“Do not make yourself easier to kill than necessary—keep your armour on at all times, on the road. Even Canissë is not infallible, and a single arrow may end your life. ” 

Elladan nodded, and Elrohir silently took up his vambraces, a fine filigree of leather-lined steel hard as adamant, bearing the star-and-Silmaril device of their House. Underneath went fine kidskin arming gloves.

“I imagine Brannor will be most eager to join you.” Elrohir smiled, hoping that Elladan would be comforted by it.

“Something about him sits uneasy with me,” replied Elladan as Elrohir buckled his arm guards, though he wished nothing more than to put them on himself and ride out in Elladan’s stead. None of this was right. 

“A bereaved man, mad with grief and uncertainty both,” Elrohir answered instead, hoping to reassure Elladan. “Such torments of the spirit are not pleasant to look upon. Is this not what turns you away from him?”

Elladan remained silent while Elrohir lowered the surcote over his mail. This, too, had no use for splendour or pageantry. Silvan dye-masters had coloured it in simple grey and green patterns that would allow the wearer to disappear into forest and heathland simply by standing still.

“I do not know,” said Elladan as his head emerged from the cloth. “Perhaps I will like him better when he is back among his own people.” 

Elladan stood up straight, and Elrohir leant in to gird his waist with a stout leather sword-belt. When he was done Elladan pulled him up and embraced him, hard and tight, heedless of the metal rings of his mail biting into Elrohir’s skin through the thin wool of his tunic. Elrohir eagerly returned the embrace, drinking in the sensation as if he might keep something of Elladan by it. Ai, this was hard!

“Thank you for supporting me in this, for going against Father’s wishes. I know how hard it is for you to watch me leave.” Elladan pressed a kiss to Elrohir’s forehead. “I will do you proud, Brother.”

Elrohir had never realized how fell Elladan looked in full battledress. Elrohir’s armour fit him perfectly, down to the last rivet—even after years of walking separate paths in life his twin and he remained comfortingly alike. How long had it been, since they last were this close, without the cares of their father’s realm standing between them?

Arwen’s ruby seemed all angles where it rested against Elrohir’s chest beneath his undertunic. He lifted it by its chain and closed his palm around it until a sharp, earthy pain drew him back to the present, to the things that were. Extending his hand to Elladan and opening his fist to offer him the jewel was the hardest thing of all, and when he finally managed it his voice was strangely rough. 

“May this protect you as it did me.”

> _“Home is behind, the world ahead,_
> 
> _And there are many paths to tread_
> 
> _Through shadows to the edge of night,_
> 
> _Until the stars are all alight._
> 
> _― The Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 3: "Three is Company"_

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so Elladan sets out while Elrohir stays behind.   
> If you'd like to read more about Canissë's past, take a look at my first age stories "The King's Peace" and "The Art of Speech through Smithcraft".   
> Elrohir's ruby pendant is introduced in chapter 4 of Gathering Dusk.   
> As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter. Comments make me a very happy scribe, and kudos are nice too.  
> See you soon!  
> Idrils Scribe


	5. Chapter 5

> _'Nothing remains of it now but a tumbled ring, like a rough crown on the old hill's head.'_
> 
> _The Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 11: “A Knife in the Dark”_

Foresight struck Elrohir at the red hour of sunset, as he crossed the great tiltyard on his way to the house. One moment he was headed for his study and a long night’s work, his hands full of wax tablets filled with the everyday minutiae of war. The next, Irmo’s hand descended like a great wave from some minstrel’s song about the Atalantë, a moving, mountainous wall beating down upon his mind. 

He could not move, could not speak, could only let the vision wash over him as passing warriors swept around their transfixed captain like water swirls about rock. Elrohir had always thought himself too rational, too grounded to share in the ethereal visions that swept his father and grandmother. What little insight was granted him now held neither image nor sound, but only thought, feeling, ideas drifting to the surface, elusive as fish in murky water.

_Elladan. Horror and loathing, the touch of evil lingering on his mind like soot after a house fire._

Elrohir recalled his last sight of his brother, Elladan’s beloved figure swallowed up by the grey-cloaked column of his escort. He had stood watching until the rearguard had disappeared over the valley’s western rim, a final glitter of midday sun on the points of their tall spears. Four days of hard riding across perilous lands now lay between them. Whatever atrocity Elladan was bearing witness to, he was beyond Elrohir’s comfort, or his aid.

Elrohir was too high-strung to remain still, fell with a cold anger at this marred world that required his bookish brother to face the realities of war. He was ruined for desk-work tonight, but he might as well put his time to good use—it would not do for Elrond’s son to be seen idling in the Hall of Fire while others worked. He spun around and returned to the barracks. 

The cavalry stables lay quiet. With the grooms’ work done for the night, the airy stone buildings had filled with the sweet smell of hay and the content chewing of well-fed horses. 

“Halloth, my horse!”

Elrohir’s order had been rather brusque, and the Silvan head groom sent him a startled look of concern. He gave her an apologetic smile as she led Rochael from her stall and set to currying and saddling, her long chestnut braid sweeping behind her as she moved with the swift, measured strokes borne from long experience tending horses. 

Elrohir knew better than to draw blade within the borders of Imladris, but nonetheless he now unsheathed his sword and swung it under Halloth’s disapproving eye. The steel turned to a lethal arc of blurred silver with the speed of his movement. It would not remain so clean with its wielder spoiling for a fight. 

Elrohir caught himself hoping for a chance at confrontation tonight, an opportunity to purge the lump of incandescent rage burning inside his chest and wash it away in blood. He had not felt this fell since the worst days of the Siege. He would join one of the mounted patrols scouting a wide perimeter around the valley. 

Halloth led Rochael into the stable courtyard and passed the mare to Elrohir with a look of compassion that put him to shame. He did not bear Elladan’s absence well, and his staff knew it. With profuse thanks he lightly leapt into the saddle, and found a lance and shield held out for him to take the instant he reached out his hand. Halloth was soft-spoken, but she excelled at her work.

“Well met, Elrohir!” With quicksilver grace Glorfindel stepped straight into Rochael’s path, stopping Elrohir cold before he could join the patrol gathering on the greensward beyond the stable courtyard. 

“Tonight’s patrols are fully manned. I will meet with you on the revised schedules on the morrow. Meanwhile you should attend your parents.” Far-seeing blue eyes caught Elrohir's. Glorfindel had seen his eagerness for violence.

Elrohir opened his mouth to protest, but Glorfindel spoke first, in a low hiss meant for his ears only. “Compose yourself! Would you have your parents suffer two children in mortal peril in a single night?” 

Elrohir had been miserable enough that it never occurred to him that Elrond and Celebrían might share his suffering at Elladan’s absence. He stood caught between his terror for Elladan, hurt pride at Glorfindel’s rebuke, and the urge to do anything at all except be alone with this dark mood. 

The chain of command had been drilled into him once in the training of a warrior of Imladris, and again among Lórien’s marchwardens. He would not gainsay Glorfindel’s order, but oh, how hard it was to leap down from the saddle! Without a word he fled to the house, leaving Glorfindel to deal with horse and bewildered groom.

\----

The fortress of Amon Sûl had been one of the wonders of the North. The great tower, carved from stone black as night, rose from within ringwall upon ringwall. It commanded the plains of Eriador and the Great East Road from its hill, a thousand feet above the winter-browned plains. 

Elladan had stood upon those heights beside many a Mortal king, where the eye could see unhindered from the snow-capped heights of the Misty Mountains to the distant Tower Hills in blue-tinged vastness to the west. In the lush rooftop garden the Kings of Arnor took counsel with Elrond’s envoys beneath the open skies of summer, while minstrels sang of Númenor and Elvenhome. A bounteous country unfolded at their feet in a tapestry of gold and green. 

Today the ice storms that howled from the north battered a barren wasteland. The blackened skeletons of razed farmsteads reached up like begging hands to winter’s lead-grey clouds, chased across the sky by the Witch-king’s sorcery riding upon the wind. 

Amon Sûl was a monolith of seamless, jet-black rock built with all the art and skill of the Men of Westernesse, and those were once great indeed. Their work withstood fire and battering rams and sorcery for ten long-years. Now at last the Witch-king had mastered the great keep of Arnor. The ringwalls had ceased to exist, their man-high stones torn down and scattered across the slope as if a giant hand had strewn about handfuls of pebbles. 

The tower itself had been broken in half. From his vantage point, hidden in a pine forest on the southern Weather Hills, Elladan could see the topmost part laid low, baring the tower’s inner chambers as if a child at play had cracked a stick of wood. Swarms of Orcs crawled the hill like cockroaches, pillaging and defiling. Nothing remained of the inner rooms’ rich furnishings, nor the bounty in the great storehouses. Curtains still flapped in the north wind from empty windows, soft pink and carmine as innards spilling from a corpse.

The keep still had a pinnacle, a tall pole of metal erected on the rubble covering the ruined stump. There the Witch-king’s banner snapped in the bitter wind, a ghastly skull-face upon a field of blackest sable. Beside the flagpole stood another lance. The oddly-shaped object dangling from it was too ravaged to be recognized at once. At first Elladan did not understand why the Men turned away their faces and Brannor wept. Only after a moment’s silent observation did Elladan realize he must be looking at the limbless trunk of King Arveleg’s body, blackened by fire and desecrated by the Orcs’ foul sport, the lidless Eye carved into his face. 

Elves attached little importance to the ultimate fate of an empty hroä, burying their dead in woodlands or beneath an unmarked green mound. Elladan knew that, for better or worse, even after the Fall the Númenóreans still sought solace for their fear of mortality in ornate tombs, opulent funeral rituals and the elaborate preservation of decaying flesh. Had Arveleg died in days of peace he would have been embalmed with the most precious of spices, wrapped in cloth of gold and laid to rest in the echoing halls of a great mausoleum of black and white marble. The dishonour visited upon their king’s body must be a terrible humiliation, not just for the House of Isildur but their entire people. 

Elladan averted his eyes and bowed at the grisly spectacle, deep and formal. “Know that we grieve with you. King Arveleg was kin to my House. The Elves will not forget his fate! He shall be avenged, but this is not the day. We have not the strength to retake the keep.”

Grief stood in Brannor’s eyes, but then a glimmer of something darker turned his gaze away. "I thank you, Son of Elrond, for your faithfulness in dark days." A muscle leapt in his jaw. "Arthedain will not forget it."

Canissë—eminently practical as always—interrupted the stiff exchange of courtesies. “We should move, my lords. These hills are crawling with spies, and I dislike the look of those crows. Let us move north around the Weather Hills, and take the safest road to Fornost!”

Brannor shook his head, suddenly frantic. “No! North of the hills we are exposed to the wind from Carn Dûm! Can you not hear _his_ voice upon it?” 

Canissë shrugged. “Let him howl.”

Elladan intervened. Canissë was unused to the company of Mortals, and failed to grasp their exquisite vulnerability to the Black Breath. “We shall have some thought for the needs of your man, Brannor, and choose a hidden path among the hills.”

“I thank you for your compassion, Lord,” Brannor replied, but instead of gratitude something darker flashed across his face. 

Canissë sent Elladan a look of concern. Unbeknownst to Brannor, her fingers flashed in the subtle sign language of Imladris’ warriors and diplomats. “Doubt,” she signed. “Danger.” 

Elladan replied in kind. “Proceed.”

Canissë turned away to oversee their formation, the pale oval of her face afloat in the darkness spreading beneath the trees.

\----

Glorfindel was an artist at heart. He enjoyed beautiful things, fine clothes and jewels, but above all the Lord of the Golden Flower delighted in this garden. It stretched from the wreathing ivory stonework of the terrace bordering his rooms, down the landscaped riverbank to the Bruinen, and all the folk of Imladris shared his joy in it. 

The great hothouse took pride of place, a wonder of Noldorin artifice. Elrohir stepped inside the warm green scent and silently followed one of the winding mosaic paths. The track snaked, lined with olive and box trees in glazed ceramic pots, through flowering hibiscus ablaze with colour, every shade of red and bright sun-yellow. Orange trees whispered in a gentle stream of mild air, their glossy leaves reaching for the morning sun falling through the glass roof overhead. Upon the same branch they bore golden fruit and pale, fragrant blossoms. The scent was intoxicating, a memory of sun-drenched Tirion sprung to life in the cold of Middle-earth’s North. This was far too glad a place for a dressing-down, and he wondered why Glorfindel had summoned him here instead of his study. 

Elrohir came upon a pair of elf-women seated on small stools tucked into the lush greenery. They were sketching the delicate swan-wing sculpture of a miniature orchid in a riot of varicoloured inks. At the sight, he clenched his fists until his fingernails drew blood from his palms. A sharp, sour rage drummed in his chest.

_Ah, the folly of it!_

How dare these lighthearted geese waste their days on such unbearable trifles while all about them the Dark closed in? How could they giggle and chatter, while Elladan .... 

No. Best not to think of his brother now, not lest he do something foolish. Elrohir’s jaw hardened, and he let out a shuddering breath. Both the artists’ heads snapped up, startled at the sound. Elrohir recognized two of his Nandorin archers, their faces pale and shocked above the bright swirls of their sketchpads. He could barely bring himself to greet them, and with a terse nod moved on. 

At last Elrohir came to the very heart of the greenhouse, an elegant gazebo set amidst flowering jacaranda, a delight of scent and colour. Glorfindel received him with a jovial smile and a carafe of crisp white wine. His chess set—fine Valinorean work of onyx and moonstone—stood ready on the table. Beside the precious board sat an impossibility: a perfectly ripe melon. 

Elrohir had always been partial to these fruits from sun-drenched Valinor, but few gardeners could coax them to ripeness in Eriador’s cool climate. In summer the sweet treat would have been an achievement, but these deep days of autumn made it nothing short of a miracle.

Glorfindel knew this well enough, and he sliced and served the delicacy with a grand flourish. 

Despite Elrohir’s dark mood, his first bite of orange flesh, honey-sweet and aromatic, genuinely baffled him. “Glorfindel! That is delicious, how did you do it!?”

Elrohir’s praise widened Glorfindel’s smile even more. “The seeds come from Yavanna’s gardens. All they need is the right care, even in winter.” 

Even with Elrohir’s limited knowledge of horticulture he knew that it was nowhere near that simple. Glorfindel must have painstakingly sprouted the seed in a forcing bed, reared the plant, hand-pollinated its blooms, then Sang the fruit to exquisite ripeness. 

The master gardener set another generous slice on Elrohir’s plate. Affection shone clear in his eyes, and Elrohir felt a stab of shame at his earlier curtness.

“I know not what came over me. I feel surrounded by darkness, lost in it. With Elladan away I seem to … “ He lacked the words to describe the suffocating sense of _wrongness_.

Glorfindel gave him a look of genuine concern. “A great evil bides in the North. His gaze weighs the spirit, even here in Imladris. The darkness is stronger now than it ever was in your lifetime. ”

Elrohir could not keep the question from falling from his lips. “Was it the same, in Gondolin?” At once he regretted it: in all his years, not once had Glorfinel spoken of his fallen city. 

Glorfindel sat up straighter, eyes focused on the tender, white-and-golden perfection of a lily blooming out of season. Elrohir feared having offended, struggled to come up with some fitting apology, but then Glorfindel spoke. 

“Worse,” he said, “for we suffered both Morgoth’s hate and the Ban of the Valar.” He seemed to understand Elrohir’s desperate need to hear that Imladris was not Gondolin, and her fate would be different. 

“We of Gondolin may seem arrogant for ignoring Ulmo’s call, but it was no mere vanity.” Glorfindel grew agitated, defensive as one standing accused. “You would understand if you had seen it, Elrohir! The Seven Gates were tall as the mountains, massive, unassailable. The gatewardens were the city’s heroes, revered as little kings in their own domain, each one’s raiment more splendid than the last. They would stand against Morgoth for us.” 

He fell silent, drawing mindless swirls into the condensation pearling on the crystal of the wine-carafe. Then he appeared to reach some decision, poured himself another cup of wine, and drank deeply. “In the end it all proved meaningless prancing and posturing. All those proud gatewardens ever did was harass ragged refugees.” 

He was still for a moment, thinking, eyes firmly on the cup in his hands. “Yes, we were proud, foolish, and vainglorious, convinced that the blessings of Valinor could be ours to have in Middle-earth. But most of all we were naïve.” Blue eyes caught Elrohir’s, and in that gaze lay a disarming honesty. “We simply failed to imagine that our defenses might fall. We failed to imagine how even a Vala would find the city, hidden as it was.”

“Things are different this time,” Glorfindel stated with confidence. “Your father is a better ruler than Turgon ever was. He knows what it is to lose, to bleed.” 

That much was true—Elrond bore the scars of many lost battles. The thought held little comfort, and Elrohir worried at it like a scab. “Do you sometimes doubt, Glorfindel? The Valar sent you to Middle-earth with a purpose, but will their plans prove wise, or even feasible?” 

A bold question, almost blasphemous, but Glorfindel fielded it without flinching. “Time alone shall tell,” he answered, wholly calm. “My mission is simple: do whatever is needed to safeguard this House. To what purpose, Manwë and Námo alone know. Have faith in them.”

How strange, to hear the Valar themselves spoken of as if they were people, real persons who might be met and spoken with. Even after an age in Imladris, Glorfindel remained an Elf of Valinor, born in the light of the Trees. He was a foreigner in Middle-earth.

The thought came to Elrohir unbidden, that his own ways would seem just as strange. He wondered whether Glorfindel was homesick at times.

Glorfindel sensed the thought. “I chose to return to Middle-earth, Elrohir. I knew that my task here would be a long one. My home shall await me when I return.”

 _When. Not if._ Their eyes met, both acutely aware that Elrohir lacked Glorfindel’s easy certainty in that regard. Much had been said between them on the subject of the Choice, and not all of it amicable. Thankfully, Glorfindel let the matter rest. 

“Whatever the end shall be … I am grateful,” he said instead. “For the life I lead here in Imladris, for having a part in these great deeds.” He gave Elrohir a look that seemed tentative, uncertain. For all his good cheer, Glorfindel did not wear his heart on his sleeve. “I am grateful to have met you.” A sword-calloused hand came to rest on Elrohir’s shoulder

All Elrohir’s life Glorfindel had been a second father to him. It was Glorfindel who first Sang him the songs of Valinor, the ancient lays of the Noldor. Glorfindel who taught him the skills of sword and bow, the art of strategy. Here was one who knew Elrohir—truly _knew_ him from earliest childhood, his good sides and his ugly ones—and yet loved him without reservation. 

Glorfindel smiled, all fondness. “There is hope yet, my friend. When _estel_ is all you have left, you should let it carry you.” 

Elrohir returned his friend's smile despite himself. “Thank you, Glorfindel. For everything.” 

Glorfindel laughed his golden laugh, relaxed and joyful. He poured them both more wine and reached for the chess board. “Now elfling, expect no mercy!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone,  
> I hope that all of you are safe and well, and that you enjoyed this chapter. Both twins find themselves in unfamiliar territory, each in their own way, and Glorfindel tries to help.  
> I'd love to hear your thoughts on the chapter and the story so far. A comment would make my day, and kudos are always appreciated!  
> See you soon,  
> Idrils Scribe


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I owe many thanks to the wonderful Raiyana for her help with this chapter!
> 
> But first, a friendly reminder of the content warnings. Dark Lords are dark, Orcs will be Orcs, and the body count is Silmarillion-like. Also, this chapter is where the story earns that 'Angst' in the tags.

Not so long ago, travelling from Imladris to Fornost Erain would have been as simple as riding down the King’s Road. As things stood, Elladan’s company crossed ravaged hill-lands in what was once eastern Arthedain, now a desolation occupied by Angmar. 

Elladan lowered his hood to study their surroundings. A cold drizzle ran down his neck and under the high collar of his mail hauberk. Before him Canissë did the same. Elladan was neither vain nor foolish enough to let himself be singled out by over-rich garb. He and every member of his considerable security detail wore identical grey wax-cloth cloaks over their mail. 

Steady rain had beaten down for days without end in sight, soaking rider and horse alike. It set everyone on edge even more than usual. He let his mind brush the fine, ever-shifting web of awareness spun by their scouts and found their minds taut as bowstrings. 

Roaming bands of Orcs plagued the Weather Hills, and with such heavy cloud cover the foul creatures could move even in the daytime. Sunset was hours away and yet deep grey shadows already lay pooled in the valleys. 

Dark pine forests loomed above the column of Elf-warriors and their Mortal companions as they followed a winding vale beneath steep, boulder-strewn slopes running down to their path. This little-used track proved treacherous, for even Elvish horses slipped on the wet soil or worked themselves into a lather of exhaustion as they sank into loamy mud up to the fetlocks. 

As Elladan looked on, Brannor’s mount startled at a hare sprinting from the undergrowth. In white-eyed panic the bay gelding slipped on a patch of decaying leaves to land against a tree-trunk with the sickening crunch of bone. 

Elladan leapt down from Rochíril’s saddle and ran to where Brannor had deftly dismounted and rolled to his feet. His face was wan with misery between hood and dark beard as he watched his gelding twitch and grapple in the agony of a broken leg. Elladan froze with indecision beside the man until Canissë appeared at his shoulder. She did not even look at Brannor’s grief as she drew a blade and put the animal out of its misery with a single bone-deep cut to the throat. 

Brannor sank to his knees, heedless of the churned slurry of mud and horseblood soaking his breeches, to cradle the horse’s head in his lap as it died. The proud captain of Arnor wept as if the beast were his most beloved kin. 

Canissë seemed equally distressed, but her trouble was far less sentimental in nature. 

“Udûn’s pits! The smell of horse-meat will soon have every Orc from here to Carn Dûm swarming this valley!” She whipped around to face Elladan. “We must get away fast, my lord!”

Elladan nodded. “Aye. Brannor, put your saddle on one of our spare horses. You will have no need of that bridle.” 

Brannor rose, pale as a corpse and with an absent, alien look on his face. His eyes darted to the slopes towering above their heads as if he expected to see the Witch-king himself swoop down upon them.

“Morgoth’s balls! Get a hold of yourself, man!” Canissë was beyond compassion. 

She descended on the cadaver and made short work of the cinch to drag Brannor’s saddle off the dead horse’s back, driving rain clattering from her cloak as she worked. So absorbed was she in getting Brannor to move that she missed the first shiver of alarm that passed in her warriors’ collective awareness.

Elladan had been almost painfully attentive, and with a jolt of pure terror he sensed the minds of the Silvan scouts guarding their flanks light up in alarm. He saw his doom through their eyes before the warning calls went up.

“Yrch!”

Suddenly they heard the beasts’ shrill cries, and saw them stream from the forest, running down the slopes like a moving tide of pitch beneath the black banners of Angmar. 

The howls and snarls of Wargs rent the air, and for the first time Elladan’s waking eyes saw those sleek and dreadful shapes that still haunted Elrohir’s dreams some nights. These monsters were near-sentient, half-animal, half-spirit, bred in mutilated mockery of Oromë’s Hounds. Their eyes shone with a fell, malicious fire; their stunted minds filled with bestial rage and devouring.

For a moment Elldan froze in terror as the world spun around him, a reality too horrid to accept. Canissë called his name once, twice, then simply elbowed him in the ribs and drew his sword for him to press the hilt into his hand. 

“Elladan! You know how to wield this. I taught you myself, and you always were a clever one. I will take charge but you must stand, son of Elrond, and show your warriors a captain’s courage!” 

A fleeting touch of warmth upon his mind and she was gone, turning away to call out her orders. Warriors peeled away from the main host, archers went up the surrounding trees, cavalry and spearmen formed a protective shieldwall with Elladan at its centre. 

Only Brannor’s men broke the orderly pattern. With a cresting wave of horror Elladan watched as they spun their horses around, Brannor leaping behind his lieutenant’s saddle, and sped up the slopes to disappear in the many-pillared shadows of the forest. At first Elladan believed that the Dúnedain were taking their vengeance in a suicidal stroke of blind rage. In the next heartbeat he noticed their sheathed weapons, the Orcs standing aside to let the Men pass unmolested.

They were betrayed. 

The stab of insight, bright and painful as a lightning strike, thrummed along the Elves’ collective minds. Without need for spoken orders their arrows rained down in vengeance. It was too little, too late but at least some of the foul traitors never reached the shelter of the treeline. Elladan could only stare in horror as Dúnedain fell beneath white-fletched Elvish arrows. A tall, dark-haired man loudly breathed his last, twitching in the slurry of bloodied mud as he gurgled and clawed ineffectively at his skewered windpipe. A snarling Orc trod the Mortal’s corpse into the mud. He had been wearing a borrowed grey cloak.

“The Void take the treacherous Secondborn!” Canissë cursed, drawing her sword with a sound like some tender thing tearing. “And curse us for blind fools, led like pigs to slaughter!”

Elladan saw beneath her rage into a vast depth of self-loathing. Canissë still bore the ancient Doom of Fëanor’s followers, haunted by treason from kin unto kin. Today that very curse had reached across three ages of the world to entangle Elladan. 

A shadow of foreboding fell on Elladan’s heart when he turned to her. “We have no hope of help: Imladris is far behind, and Fornost four days’ march ahead, if it still stands.”

As if to prove his words, the first wave of Orcs battered their ring of shields, but the noose was not yet fully drawn. 

Elladan quickly turned to Borndis, who stood at his elbow directing her scouts. “Here, I give this into your keeping!”

He scrabbled beneath his undershirt, and Elrohir’s ruby flashed in the dying day’s half-light. Borndis’ eyes widened at the sight of the jewel.

“Carry this to Imladris by any means,” Elladan ordered her, “at all costs; even at the cost of being held a coward who deserted me. Flee! Go! I command you!” 

Borndis’ face was wet with more than rain. She kissed Elladan’s cheek like she had not in the many long-years since he was her toddling shadow bearing a tiny bow of green willow, but she did obey. The ruby disappeared beneath her mail. She drew the hood of her grey cape, and even Elladan’s keen eyes could not track the shimmering shape of her once it was swallowed by the dark pines. 

A pair of Wargs bounded after her, hulking grey shapes leaping through the undergrowth, their open mouths slavering with bloodlust. Elladan cried out in warning, but a ring of Orcs had closed around the Elvish host and Borndis was now gone beyond all help. She would escape the fell wolves by her own skills, or be torn limb from limb in their jaws. 

Step by iron-booted step the Orcs closed in, the fetid reek of them overpowering in the nose. Elladan breathed shallowly through his mouth lest he vomit and shame himself in sight of all.

The Orcish captain was a hulking, ironclad brute from Gundabad with yellow eyes and corpse-pale skin. It called out a challenge in the Black Speech, bloodshot eyes bright with malice as it whipped its Warg until the beast reared. Elladan had never felt such hatred for any living being as he did when he spotted someone’s torn-off arm dangling from its jaws. 

He leapt into Rochiril’s saddle and raised up his sword. The Noldorin blade glittered with a sharp blue light, and suddenly Elladan felt fell and fearless, his heart aflame with a thundering, defiant hope. He turned to face the great Orc and called out the battle-cry of Imladris with all the Power he could muster thrumming behind his voice.

_ “Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima!” _

At once every last eye in the valley was on him, both friend and foe. Elladan laughed. To be a son of Elrond was to embody an idea, be a living symbol of hope and defiance as tangible as Eärendil was remote. If this would be his death, he would make it worthy of Song. At the sight his warriors took heart, and many voices took up that call in all the tongues of Elvenkind.

Canissë spun her own destrider alongside, pride and dismay at war in her mind. “You are brave indeed! After that, they will deal you something worse than death. Fight hard, Elladan!”

A blast of horns startled his horse, but Rochiril was too well-trained to jump in fear like Brannor’s mare. Elladan had a brief moment to think of Elrohir with longing and gratitude. 

And then they charged—an unheard signal—and Elladan saw only the next foe and the next, trusting Canissë to defend his back even as he wreaked bloody havoc in the ranks of their enemies. The sounds of rending flesh and agony were new to him, as was the fetid smell of black blood.

Orcs fell like wheat before the scythe to the Elvish blades, and for a brief, utterly glorious moment it seemed they would somehow win. 

Then the wind turned into the north, and a fell shadow swooped down. 

“Fuinur!” called the Orcs. 

Elladan was a loremaster and he knew that name, even if his mind refused to contain its horror. Horses shrieked and bolted and Elves cried out in terror when the bitter reality of it struck. 

The Orcs kept chanting that terrible name like a spell. “Fuinur! Fuinur!”

The Ringwraith laughed, and drew its jagged sword while his thralls drew strength from the miasma of despair that went before him. 

Elladan saw Glingaer fall, torn from his horse by a pair of snarling Orcs leaping onto the animal, their weight bearing horse and rider to the ground with an anguished scream suddenly silenced. He leapt from his mount when they tried the same with him, and Rochiril’s screams echoed in his pain-fogged mind.

Canissë’s battle cry resounded in his ears – strong, at first, burning with the light of her ancient spirit – but dimming with fatigue which each utterance until she grew too hoarse and short of breath to shout. 

“ _ Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima _ !” he cried, joining her voice with his own, ignoring those points of the web that were extinguished in his mind, one by one. 

Canissë and Elladan were the last now, standing back to back, spattered with blood and gore. Grim understanding resonated between them: they would not be taken alive. No one would ever sing of their last stand in the Hall of Fire. 

Canissë threw away her shield, splintered and torn, gripping her sword with both hands. Elladan smiled grimly and raised his own blade with a vicious snarl at the oncoming foe. He lifted his voice, hoarse and tired as he was, and Sang a western wind in their faces. For a single heartbeat the dying day’s blue twilight seemed to brighten. It was but a mockery of hope.

The Ringwraith was strong in this darkening hour. He sang a foul cantrip of artful necromancy, laughing at the Elves’ despair. Elladan caught but half the words in the Black Speech, and terror gripped him as their meaning sank in.

Another Orc leapt at him, but this one was unarmed. Elladan ran the beast through and it belched out its life’s blood in a gush of black slick. As it died its clawed hand closed around Elladan’s wrist, vicelike. In blind panic he hewed off the corpse’s arm. That should have been the end of it, but the hand clenched like a band of iron and it would not move even in bloodless death. There was no time to pry loose the fingers, because another empty-handed Orc leapt at him, and another. 

Elladan hacked and kicked and screamed but he could not keep the myriad hands from grabbing him like pale crabs from the deep come at a floating corpse, and once attached neither sword nor Song would move them. Orcish hands scrabbled for his arms, his legs, even his hair until he was covered in them as in a second layer of armour, their splintered ulnar bones sticking from him at odd angles.

And then Canissë was torn away, fear and panic enveloping the connection between them as hands, not weapons, stole her from his side, burying her strength beneath their bulk until he saw no more movement. 

The next Elladan knew was blind terror. The Ringwraith leaned over him as he writhed in the mud and gore of the battlefield, pinned down by clutching corpses. This was a mere lieutenant, not the Witch-king himself, but Fuinur’s proximity nonetheless gutted the mind, carved it to raw, shapeless pieces like the body of hapless King Arveleg. 

Elladan’s bloodstained appearance seemed to excite Fuinur. The bony mask that once was a mortal face came close to Elladan’s as if they were lovers leaning in for a kiss. His breath stank like an open grave.

Elladan’s hands were pulled behind his back with iron manacles, and the last he saw before a black hood covered his eyes was Canissë’s struggling form dragged from a pile of the dead.

> _ Last of all Húrin stood alone. [...] but they took him at last alive, by the command of Morgoth, for the Orcs grappled him with their hands, which clung to him still though he hewed off their arms; and ever their numbers were renewed, until at last he fell buried beneath them.  _
> 
> _ The Silmarillion, Chapter 20: “Of the Fifth Battle: Nirnaeth Arnoediad” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back everyone!   
> Brannor finally shows his cards, and they're terrible indeed.   
> I'm always keen to hear what people think, but particularly so for this chapter. Writing was difficult, and took an absurd number of drafts and versions. A comment would make me a very happy scribe! (and so would kudos)
> 
> See you soon,  
> Idrils Scribe


	7. Chapter 7

Elrohir woke to terror. 

His bedroom lay pale in the bone-white light of the hunter’s moon, the casements open to the Bruinen’s song now tainted with an alien note of discord. A tendril of the encroaching darkness had breached the sanctuary that was Imladris. Some fell thing was out to hunt. 

Elrohir sat up in bed, and the north wind caught what loose wisps of hair had escaped his simple braid. This was no soft breeze whispering through the valley’s apple orchards, but a gale that howled from the desolate wastes of Angmar to sting with icy claws, groping face and skin beneath the thin linen of his nightshirt. It carried the stench of death. 

Elrohir’s eyes whipped across the room. There! In the sallow half-light something moved at the foot of his bed. The thing writhed, crawled closer, and Elrohir cried out in dismay. This was Glingaer, a scout assigned to Elladan’s security detail. The familiar traits of his fine-boned Nandorin face were twisted into sad mockery by a head bashed in. Despite the grotesque, unsurvivable injury Glingaer’s bloodied hands clawed for Elrohir’s throat. One eye was lost amidst the amorphous mass of shattered skull and brain. The remaining one shone black as the Void. 

Instinct took over. Elrohir leapt back. His swift kick met only air. In half a heartbeat his fingers found the silver-tooled knife beneath his pillow. A quick stab for the jugular saw the creature reduced to a heap of mangled limbs.

Where he expected gore his searching hand met wrinkled linen and feathers gleaming snow-white in the moonlight. Reality came crashing back with a rush of blood like thunder in his ears as he surveyed the ruin of his eiderdown. Some strange entanglement of memory and Mortal dream had run away with him. 

Alarm pulsed through his veins like the drums of war, his mouth dry with that gritty, metallic taste of adrenaline. A single devastating certainty cut through his confusion. Something was deadly, desperately wrong. He needed to leave. 

Elrohir swung from the bed, knife in hand, frozen in a moment’s indecision on where to turn first. The room’s once-familiar furnishings menaced him from every angle. Velvet bed curtains billowed shroud-like in the strange wind. Elrohir’s harp in its corner, a beloved gift from Celebrían, now seemed some Orcish instrument of unspeakable torture. Wall hangings, once things of beauty in the light of sun and candle, twisted to show baleful shapes of horror and decay. 

Another shadow moved near the door. Elrohir spun, knife out to run the intruder through, be they flesh or spirit. 

“Elrohir! Stand down!” Ardil kept a safe distance but his voice brooked no argument. 

Elrohir breathed deeply. In and out. He half-expected the stench of the battlefield, that greasy smoke that wafts from burning corpses. The air that filled his lungs smelled of Imladris in autumn—the crisp spice of fallen leaves and a hint of cider apples. 

“I am awake.” It sounded less confident than he had hoped. Only then did he realize Ardil’s unusual intrusion. “Why are you in my bedroom?”

“I am in charge of your security.” Ardil answered dryly. “Where else would I be when you wreck your rooms in the dead of night? You were shouting.” 

Elrohir belatedly realized he had not been left alone for a moment of the past week. Elladan’s departure had left him unstable, beset by unpredictable waves of foresight that set his mind adrift like a ship unmoored. Elrond and Celebrían had kept him close, made sure he ate and slept and was diverted with tasks that did not involve the handling of actual weaponry. Elrohir had let them. He dutifully heard scouts’ reports, wrote up rosters and accepted Glorfindel’s suspiciously spontaneous invitations to evenings of chess. Ardil must have been charged with nighttime surveillance.

His guard stepped into the room, one hand outstretched towards Elrohir. He stood staring at the strange gesture for an instant, dumb and motionless. 

“Pass me the knife.” Ardil implored. “You have no need of it.”

Every instinct Elrohir possessed screamed in protest at the very idea of going unarmed on this night. He shook his head. “I am awake.”

He sheathed the blade and turned towards the wardrobe to retrieve a field uniform. He cursed under his breath when he realized he would have to wear standard-issue armour instead of his own.

“Send word to the stables and the barracks.” As he spoke Elrohir yanked off his nightshirt and pulled the uniform’s fitted undertunic over his head without a second thought. Ardil had been his personal guard for nearly ten long-years. The man had seen it all. 

“I will need my usual escort. Have them prepare at once. Get your own gear while you are out. I will meet you in the stable courtyard in half an hour. And have some armour sent up for me!” Elrohir did not turn to look at Ardil. Issuing orders had become second nature over the years.

Ardil did not move, but stood with his feet planted wide like a swordsman taking the measure of an adversary. “You should speak to your father first.”

Elrohir spun on his heels to face his bodyguard, unsteady fingers struggling with the ties of his gambeson. “Stars above, Ardil! Of all the times to be splitting hairs! We must hurry!” Whatever this was, they had no time to lose.

Ardil shook his head. “I have orders not to let you leave this house.”

Elrohir’s hands clenched into fists and he saw Ardil’s eyes settle on his knife-hilt. He was intimately familiar with Ardil’s every move and feint, that minute twitch of tension in the man’s shoulders as he prepared to leap. Not once in ten long-years of training together had Elrohir managed to best the ancient warrior in unarmed combat. His only hope now was the strength of the desperate. 

Ardil raised both hands in a placating gesture as if he sensed the thought. “Come with me, Elrohir. Let us talk before we do each other an injury. There is someone you should see.” 

\----

None of what awaited them in Elrond’s study made any sense.

Not Celebrian’s steely, dry-eyed silence.

Not Elrohir’s ruby pendant, which should be around Elladan’s neck in Fornost. Celebrían now inexplicably clutched the jewel, her eyes blazing with something Elrohir could not name. 

Not Borndis, who should likewise be in Fornost. The Silvan warrior was briar-scratched and mud-soaked as if she had been there, then come crawling back to Imladris on hands and knees. How absurd she looked, kneeling before Elrond like a supplicant instead of standing to attention as she should. 

Elrond did nothing to restore order or rightness but stood frozen, impotent, eyes empty as if his mind were elsewhere. And what fool had raised Glorfindel and Erestor from their beds before they even fetched Elrohir?

All eyes turned to Elrohir as he stepped into the study. The press of their one question filled the room thick as smoke in a house on fire. He knew the answer, knew it with devastating certainty. 

Time slipped, stopped and stuttered when he spoke the words. “Elladan is not dead.” 

Elrohir’s voice came out calm and level, but all their eyes were heavy on him and he could not bear them.

Now Borndis was sobbing, deep and harsh, and Elrond buried his face in his hands. Elrohir did not know what would have been the better thing to say. 

“What happened?” he managed to utter, though his mouth seemed made of wood.

Borndis, now prostrate at Elrohir’s feet as if he were some tyrant king of Black Númenor, at last gave him some clarity. 

“Oh, my lord, they took him. The Men were traitors for Angmar, bait to trap a son of Elrond! Your brother sent me away to warn you. His guards were all killed, but he is captive!”

One rainy autumn day long ago in Lórien, Elladan had fallen from a mallorn tree. Elrohir recalled every agonizing detail of his twin’s stumble on wet, moss-covered bark, the wobbly overcompensation that followed, the toppling. He could still feel in his own chest that jerking sensation of weightlessness, the pummelling of rushing branches, the dull, teeth-rattling thud of the ground. Elladan had been knocked out cold. For an instant his mind went black as the Void and Elrohir had believed him dead. He had wept like a child then. Now, he was the one falling.

No language Elrohir knew had a word for what he would become. Orphan, widow, widower. These defined a person by their loss. No such word existed for an amputated twin.

Someone keened, and only then did he realize it was his own voice. In an instant he was embraced, wrapped in hands and arms and bodies. Elrond, Celebrían, and Ardil. 

It seemed an unusual display of affection from his stoic guard. With a jolt Elrohir felt Ardil deftly reach into the tangle of limbs to lift his knife from its sheath.

\----

“And now for the bitter question.” Elrond fought to keep his voice steady, but could not keep from rubbing his face with trembling hands. “What shall be our next move?”

His eyes came to rest on Elrohir with unveiled terror. Elrohir was not himself, with his mind awash in whatever horror was being visited on Elladan. Their reserved, fastidious son had emerged from his rooms wild-eyed, unbraided and dressed in what appeared to be half a field uniform. Ardil, eminently sensible even now, had sent for a formal robe, a comb and a flask of miruvor to restore his captain’s dignity. It did nothing to soften Elrohir’s heart-wrenching look of mute despair. 

“Our options are limited,” said Erestor. He rose to pace the room, his robes trailing behind him like the wings of some great, dark bird. “There has been no demand for ransom or surrender.”

“They do not know that we know. Not yet,” Elrohir interjected, a haunted look in his eyes. ”Time and surprise are our only advantages. We must set out for Carn Dûm at once!”

With a swordsman’s agility, Erestor spun to face Elrohir. “Is he in Carn Dûm? How do you know this?!” he demanded sharply.

Elrohir seemed astonished, and answered with rock-solid certainty: “I _know_.”

Elrond’s stomach dropped with the sickening implications. So did Celebrían’s, it seemed, because she clasped his hand beneath the table with bruising strength. Together they shared a look of horrible understanding. 

Erestor was quick to intervene. “Elrohir, if you know where Elladan is, does he not know the same of you? And will he share that knowledge, when the information is requested with enough … persuasion?“

Erestor turned to Elrond and Celebrían, his mouth set in grim determination. “We made contingency plans for your sons. I recommend you follow through on them despite matters being ... the reverse of what we anticipated.”

Elrohir gave Erestor a perplexed stare. “Reverse? What contingency?”

Erestor moved to stand beside Elrohir, and laid a hand on his shoulder. The gesture seemed both comfort and restraint. “You and your brother share great closeness in mind. This might be used against us if one of you were captured, and it was most likely to be you. Events have turned out otherwise, but the risk is the same. You should leave this council, Elrohir, lest other ears than yours learn our plans.”

“You have no hope of finding Elladan without me,” Elrohir growled, shaking off Erestor’s hand, his every muscle coiled like a great cat about to leap.

Erestor did not answer him, but turned away to face his lord and lady once more, beseeching. “You have more to consider than your sons alone.”

Through a fog of grief Elrond nodded, hanging on to composure by the merest thread. “Elrohir, go rest in your rooms. I will come to you soon.”

Elrohir shot to his feet, his chair clattering to the ground behind him. “Father, I have obeyed you in all things, but not this. I will ride out after Elladan.”

Elrond reeled with the horror of his child’s agony, and wished for nothing more than to give comfort. He reached for Elrohir with a half-formed, desperate gesture that was half embrace, half caress, as he delivered another blow. “I cannot allow it.”

Elrohir flinched away. “Will you abandon him!?” That look of shocked betrayal in his eyes was harder to face than the worst of Sauron’s horrors. 

“Never.” Celebrian’s voice was carefully level. “Elrohir, the Witch-king has sought vengeance against you ever since the siege. With Elladan’s assistance he will hunt you down wherever you turn. You must remain within this valley where our wards can shield you.”

Elrohir interrupted her with a shout of rage. “The Void take your accursed _wards_!” He spat out the word like a curse, and all in the room paled. 

He seemed shocked by his own fury, and let his voice go calm and clear. “You will let me rescue my brother.”

Celebrían rose to stand before him. “Be reasonable, Elrohir. You are not Fingon, to walk into Carn Dûm alone with your harp across your back.” 

He scoffed. “I may not be Fingon, but that ill-begotten Mortal who calls himself Witch-king is no Morgoth!”

Elrohir turned to the door, and Glorfindel rose to his feet. He glanced at Elrond with that unspeakable question in his eyes. Elrond had no choice but to agree. 

_Seize him. For his own safety. He will never forgive us, but we have no choice._

Glorfindel coiled to leap, but in the next heartbeat three sharp strikes of wood against wood rang against the door. All in the study froze, and Elrohir made a small, keening sound. A message this urgent could only be grievous.

Erestor opened the door to reveal, not a message-bearer but Mithrandir wielding his staff, flanked by an apologetic-looking Fëanorian doorguard. 

“I bid you good evening, though one could hardly call it good.” Mithrandir shouldered past Erestor uninvited, and his piercing blue eyes lit on Elrond and Celebrían. “I would have a word with the lord and lady. A _private_ word.”

> _In later days he {Mithrandir} was the friend of all the Children of Ilúvatar, and took pity on their sorrows; and those who listened to him awoke from despair and put away the imaginations of darkness._
> 
> _The Silmarillion, Valaquenta, Of the Maiar_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back everyone, and happy holidays! I hope that all of you have found some light in the darkest days of the year (for those in the Southern Hemisphere: lucky you!)
> 
> The home front hears of Elladan's capture, poor Elrohir doesn't take it well, and Gandalf leaps to the rescue. As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the chapter. I won't leave you in uncertainty about Elladan's fate much longer. The next chapter is almost ready to go. If RL doesn't get too crazy I'll probably post it on Monday.
> 
> See you soon,  
> Idrils Scribe


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: Orcs and Ringwraiths are evil, and bad things happen to good characters.

> _“The Nazgûl came again, and as their Dark Lord now grew and put forth his strength, so their voices, which uttered only his will and his malice, were filled with evil and horror. … At length even the stout-hearted would fling themselves to the ground as the hidden menace passed over them, or they would stand, letting their weapons fall from nerveless hands while into their minds a blackness came, and they thought no more of war; but only of hiding and of crawling, and of death.”_
> 
> _The Return of the King, LoTR Book 5, Ch 4, The Siege of Gondor_

The north wind scythed howling across the barren heathlands of Eriador, cold enough that even Orcs sought the shelter of a small valley between the Northern Downs. 

Elladan felt a shadow loom over him, and he struggled against his bindings once more. He was lightheaded from inhaling his own stale breath within the black hood. The coarse wool was crusted with Eru knew what fluids from previous prisoners. The stench was breathtaking. 

He shook with cold and rage and terror all at once in his thin undertunic. Ungentle hands had stripped him of his armor. The Orcs had wanted none of it, shrieking in disgust at the Elvish metal’s mere touch, but Hillmen had no such qualms. Elladan had listened with mounting horror as a rabble of ill-equipped soldiers first played dice, then came to blows over Elrohir’s precious hauberk. The gorget, vambraces and gambeson were long gone. 

Elladan willed himself not to remember Arwen’s ruby, its red glimmer of living flame clutched in Borndis’ fist. Not lest _he_ read it in his mind. 

Fuinur towered over Elladan when the hood was at last lifted from his eyes. This was not the Witch-king himself but merely a lieutenant. Still the Ringwraith’s proximity was a terror beyond any Elladan had ever known. Bitter hatred for the murderer of his people made him tense like a coiled spring, fists balled and teeth bared in a vicious snarl, but he could not hold on to his courage. Soon the miasma of dread from the black-cloaked shade looming over him slackened his hands and forced him to lower his eyes and turn his face away, though he hated his own weakness. Hot, shameful tears ran down his cheeks as he shook at the Morgul-wraith’s feet.

Some unnatural thing that was once a human hand, encased in black leather, touched Elladan’s face to lift a single drop, and disappeared into the emptiness beneath the shadowy hood. Fuinur drew a rattling breath and with a slithering jolt of disgust Elladan understood that the creature was _smelling_ him.

Somewhere behind Elladan rose a chorus of howls and groans and the sound of fists striking flesh. Canissë shrieked with rage as she fought to reach her ward. Her chained hands bludgeoned a Hillman’s face, loosening a spatter of blood and teeth, but there were too many others and in the end she was wrestled to the ground by a writhing mass of bodies. 

Fuinur wholly ignored the disturbance. “Elrond’s son,” he snarled, his voice a cold, alien hiss of scorn. “You are the other one, that craven weakling hiding behind your father’s cloak!”

Another deep breath, and the strange sniffing. “A tender piece of meat you are. And we shall have all the time in the world to make something out of you!” Fuinur’s voice now held something akin to lust, twisted with ages of hungry denial. 

Horror infected Elladan’s mind and heart like creeping rot. He could not strike or even struggle, and he knew he would never again be free of that foul, taunting voice echoing in the recesses of his mind. 

Fuinur savored his terror, drawing out the moment as he lay still and mute in the monstrous embrace. When the wraith rose, dropping him to the frozen ground with a teeth-rattling thunk, Elladan could do nothing but turn his face into the rimed grass, vanquished by the knowledge that this was but a taste of the horrors to come.

He could only be childishly, shamefully grateful when the unbearable weight of Fuinur’s gaze shifted to another.

“Brannor of Arthedain!” hissed the Ringwraith, his voice chill with hate. “A traitor you made yourself, cursed among Men and Elves. All in vain! You were to bring me Elrohir son of Elrond, the Butcher of Rivendell, but you dragged in his soft-handed brother instead. Now tell me, wretch, why I should uphold my half of our bargain?”

Brannor was death-pale. “My Lord, I beg you!” he cried. His eyes rolled in their sockets like those of a spooked horse as he went to his knees before the terror towering over him. “Surely either son of Elrond is a valuable prisoner?” Still kneeling, he half-turned to point at Canissë. “And his lieutenant has opposed you for an age! Surely you desire vengeance? Please, lord, release my wife and son, and those of my men, so all the North may know that the King stands by his word!”

Fuinur stepped closer to take Brannor’s face in a black-gloved hand in a strange mockery of gentleness.“The King keeps his word. Your kin have left Carn Dûm already.” 

The Mortal collapsed in terror, his waxen face beaded with sweat. 

“We made no such agreement about you,” hissed the Ringwraith as he held Brannor’s slack body upright with an iron grip on the Man’s jaw. “You have vexed me, and neither will the King be pleased.”

Brannor was beyond speech. He only whined, like some cornered animal. Fuinur released his death-grip on the Man’s face, and he collapsed to the frozen ground, slack as a corpse. 

Fuinur reached for his scabbard. His longsword rang as it was unsheathed, glimmering with that grey, oily shine of a Morgul-blade. Brannor turned his face from the sight, tears streaming down his cheeks. 

Instead of striking Fuinur stooped, and thrust the hilt into Brannor’s trembling hands. “You shall test the runt of Elrond’s litter!” 

A hellish din of jibes and cheers rose from the throng of Orcs and Hillmen. They jostled and pushed forward for a view as they whistled and jeered and rapped their pommels against their shields until the noise seemed to render Elladan deaf and blind with terror.

_Ai, Elrohir! Where are you?_

The Ringwraith waved and a jeering Orc ran to thrust a rusted scimitar into Elladan’s hands.

“You will fight to first blood—the winner gains an easy death!” Fuinur proclaimed as he thrust Brannor forward to face Elladan. “Go on, traitor! Make this worth watching, or you will leave this world without your skin!”

The crowd surged forward to encircle them, roaring. “Gut him!” they cried at Brannor. “Gut that Golug swine!”

Overseers made a barrier with spear-shafts and shouted in coarse voices, “Back, you maggots!” as their whips cracked overhead. The horde shrieked and fell back, then came on again, roaring and chanting as if this were a game. 

An Elvish voice cut through the din like a clarion-call. “No! I will fight in his stead!” Canissë was almost invisible beneath the pile of struggling Men pinning her to the ground. 

Fuinur laughed his terrible laugh. “You will serve a different purpose!” He turned to the Men sat atop her. “Stand her up and take her to the front, so she can watch the pup bleed!”

They swiftly did his bidding.

\----

Brannor stepped into the circle, slipped out of his cloak and tossed it to one of his men. He stood there clad in a gray tunic woven on the looms of Imladris, a Morgul-blade in his hand.

Canissë watched an Orc press a notched scimitar into Elladan’s hand, saw him heft it, testing the weight and balance. Fear struck her, but also the comforting knowledge that Elladan had been trained in the sword from infancy by the likes of Glorfindel and herself, age-old elite warriors. He knew the devious art of the blade inside and out.

 _But that Mortal wields a Morgul-blade!_ _I must stop this, somehow. I must find a way._

Many hands kept her limbs and neck in their sweaty grip. Mortal hands and Orcish ones. Their unwashed stink wafted into her nose with every breath.

She let her weight slump against them, thinking. _Ai, Manwë and Varda! I have no right to call upon you, but hear me for his sake!”_

Elladan stood looking lost and vulnerable in his torn undertunic—such a far cry from his velvet court robes. He raised the scimitar in his right hand, feet planted firm and slightly apart. Canissë noticed it with a fleeting wisp of satisfaction: she had drummed the proper footwork into Elrond’s children time and again, hammered it home to all three of them year after year, hour after hour on the training grounds, until it became instinct.

Elladan crouched, sizing up his opponent, and Brannor began edging along the circle of spear-shafts. His Morgul-blade shone with an unnatural gleam in the muted light. Fear burned in the Mortal’s eyes. Brannor was a trained warrior of Arthedain, a veteran of many battles, but he was also terrified, and uncertain. He would make mistakes. 

Any small thing could change the course of this duel, Canissë realized. An outcry from the throng of spectators. A stray beam of sunlight. A fleeting shadow.

Elladan slowly circled opposite Brannor, feinting, testing his opponent’s speed and agility with an expert eye.

Canissë watched the realization strike Brannor. Elladan may be Elrond’s bookish son, but he was far from easy prey. Only now did the Mortal grasp that this was no soft-handed princeling, reared in gilded luxury, but a fighter born and trained. 

Canissë could afford no pity for Brannor—he was nothing more to her than a threat to her ward. She watched despair alight in the Man's eyes, making him all the more dangerous.

And then Brannor pounced.

Canissë saw the motion, stifled a cry.

The Morgul-blade struck empty air, and Elladan stood now behind Brannor with a clear opening at the man’s unarmored back.

 _Now, Elladan! Now!_ Canissë screamed into his mind.

Elladan’s attack was a thing of beauty, fluid and elegant, but hesitant—a fraction too slow. Brannor twisted, leapt away and out of reach. They circled each other once again. 

_He has never killed before,_ Canissë realized, and cursed her own oversight and Elrond’s overprotectiveness. Brannor would have no such hesitations.

Again Brannor attacked, wild eyes glaring. Elladan slipped away, but his counterblow came a heartbeat late.

The two fighters circled each other; and then Canissë heard it. Brannor’s voice was barely a whisper, even to Elvish ears. “Come. I will kill you cleanly!”

Elladan’s eyes flashed with indignation.

“Let me!” Brannor insisted. ”‘Tis the greater mercy!”

For a single, terrifying instant Canissë believed Elladan would allow it. She knew for certain, as well as she knew her own name, that Brannor would merely wound and claim clean death for himself. 

Almost imperceptibly, Elladan shook his head. 

Canissë straightened her back against the hands restraining her. A vicious twist too swift for mortal eyes snapped her captors’ arms like dry twigs. The Hillmen had searched and stripped her, but they were coarse, foolish creatures, and Canissë was old and clever. They had taken all her blades—save one. 

All the world stilled and shifted until Arda itself seemed to turn upon its axis, and that axis was her right hand.

_Manwë guide me, swift and sure. For him._

Little pity had the kinslayers been promised, and little did Canissë expect. She had done many ill deeds, selfish and senseless, but this one would be for good. And it would matter.

This flawless, pivotal moment in time. 

This utterly perfect throw. 

Brannor collapsed with Canissë’s boot knife jutting from his eye socket. He was dead before his body thudded against the frozen ground.

“You foolish woman!” bellowed Fuinur.

He turned to his Orcs, a jeering, slavering mass of claws and fangs. “Have her!” 

Hands. All Canissê’s world had become their hands, clawing, tearing, ripping cloth and skin alike, and she let out a long, wordless scream at the agony of it. Teeth sank into her from all sides. The Orcs shook their heads like wolves tearing flesh from a carcass. 

_They are eating me_. The thought struck her with stark, numbing reality. It seemed strangely appropriate, after having witnessed that grisly spectacle acted out on so many battlefields.

Then her legs were pulled apart and she screamed even louder, though the deed itself was but a single drop in a raging flood wave of pain. 

Some things could not be borne, and the spirit must slide free from a body that can no longer house it. That thin, luminous thread binding fëa to hroä was surprisingly easy to snap, like a small animal’s spine pops beneath the hunter’s hand. At once pain and terror were past, instantly grown irrelevant. 

One thing still mattered, now that she was Houseless. 

Elladan did not look at the seething mass of Orcs that writhed over her fallen body in a slick of bloodied snow. His eyes were on her instead.

_He sees me._

Canissë no longer had a body, but _something_ smiled nonetheless as she beheld her young charge one last time. So many memories joined in that beloved face. Fingolfin looked out at her, proud and valiant; Turgon in the days of his youth; Galadriel and Arafinwë the wise. And there, in the depths of Elladan’s sea-grey eyes was Dior, Lúthien’s son, long dead and yet not lost. 

Canissë could no longer protect Elladan. All she had left was _estel_. Hope that her deed bought him enough time for rescue. She was surprised to find that she could move, and press something like a kiss to his tear-stained cheek. 

_Fare you well, son of my heart. May the world not be so marred when next we meet._

From the West rang a call, stern but not cruel. The summons of Mandos were neither sight nor sound but some other sense, profound and impossible to ignore. 

A deep, joyous longing came over Canissë. She was going home at last. 

> _“if by life or death I can save you, I will.”_
> 
> _― The Fellowship of the Ring, book 1 ch 10: “Strider”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! This was a hard chapter to write, and the same probably goes for reading it. This kind of scene is a first for me, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on Canissë's fate. Comments and kudos are much appreciated. 
> 
> If you'd like to see Canissë in better times, take a look at 'The Art of Speech through Smithcraft'. She also has cameos in 'The King's Peace' and 'Northern Skies'. 
> 
> I'll probably post the next chapter on Saturday. Until then, stay safe and happy holidays!
> 
> Idrils Scribe


	9. Chapter 9

Celebrían shivered at the touch of power as Mithrandir entered the room. Beneath the thin veneer of a Mortal greybeard a spirit from beyond Arda burned bright as a watch-fire. His eyes were sky-blue, and their light more ancient than Elvish reckoning. 

“Mithrandir,” Elrond said as the door closed behind Glorfindel’s retreating back with a sharp click. “You have heard the tidings?”

Without invitation Mithrandir took the chair at Elrond’s right hand, the one Erestor had just vacated. “Your son rode into a trap,” he said. 

At the harsh reality spoken aloud, Celebrían could not keep her tears at bay. Her son, her dear little boy, her Elladan, was the Witch-king’s prisoner. No language in Arda contained words to express the horror of it. She felt a strange rattle in her chest and wondered at it, before realizing it was her own voice, groaning like a pained animal into white-knuckled fists pressed to her mouth.

“The Witch-king is cunning,” Mithrandir continued, kindly averting his eyes as she battled for composure. “He will exploit what comes to his hand. Time is of the essence now.”

For a brief instant Elrond abandoned all pretense of control and buried his face in his hands. His shoulders shook. It was all Celebrían could do not to embrace her husband to rock him in her arms the way she would when the worst dreams found him in the darkness of their bedroom. She could not do it here—not before this Maia. 

“Our hands—” Elrond righted himself, his voice strange and strangled. “—our hands are tied. Elrohir alone might find his brother, but his mind is in the Witch-king’s grasp. If he leaves my wards he will be snatched, and devoured. Unless …” 

Elrond looked up to fix red-rimmed eyes on Mithrandir. “... Unless the wards move with him.” He could not keep from touching Vilya, hidden from sight on his left hand. The briefest flash of gold and sapphire flickered in the lamplight as he moved.

Mithrandir’s gaze followed the gleam with a look of dismay. “What becomes of a fortress if both the defender and his greatest weapon abandon it?” 

Elrond mastered himself. He spread both hands on the table before him, and only his golden wedding band reflected the light. His eyes sought Mithrandir with something like defiance and he asked, softly, “What use is said fortress, when all it once sheltered is lost?”

“Whatever we do, whatever may come—Imladris must not be abandoned,” replied the Maia, eyes fixed on Elrond’s bare left forefinger. “Not even for your heir. Elrohir’s wounds will be deep, but in time he might be healed from his brother’s loss. And then there is Arwen ...”

Elrond gasped as if struck. That small, pained sound at last burst a dam. Celebrían felt the blood drain from her face as she grew pale with fury. 

_ How dare that errand-boy of the Valar so casually use up my children!  _

She stood up to face Mithrandir, her chair screeching against the tiles. He had the decency to look taken aback.

“Look at me, envoy of Aman!” Celebrían’s voice sounded strange and sharp to her own ears. “Tell me to my face that you will do nothing—that the  _ Valar  _ will do nothing to save my son! Do your kind know nothing of Elves? Neither Elrond nor I can face a world without our children. If Elladan is lost, so is your cause!”

Mithrandir did not reply, his face and mind inscrutable. He, too rose from his chair, and the shadows in the room appeared to deepen as he turned to Celebrían. “I know, Lady, but my strength lies not in arms. One thing I may do, and by that I place the fate of all Ennor in your hands.”

His gaze was fire-bright, but she met it without flinching. “That is already the case. You may as well improve our odds.”

A pulsing light kindled in Mithrandir’s hand. Red as flame, brilliant as Eärendil’s star—no, not a star. A ruby, set in a band of yellow gold. 

At first Celebrían was all confusion, but Elrond gasped. When he last saw this particular piece of jewelry it had been safely on Círdan’s hand. 

Through him she, too, understood. “Narya!” 

Mithrandir nodded. “Círdan passed it to me.”

The horrific implication dawned on Celebrían, and her breath strangled in her throat at the thought of all Elrond’s security measures for Vilya, the walls of stone and Song, the many guards protecting Imladris’ inner sanctum. 

She barely had words for this folly, this insane outrage.“All this time you carried one of the Three on your person? Into the wilderness, east and south and Manwë knows where else?!” Harsh rebuke seemed easier than to speak calmly—better to keep off the tears. 

“Narya’s purpose is to fight tyranny and despair.” Mithrandir’s sky-blue eyes locked into hers. “A task best undertaken in dark places.”

Celebrían was beyond concern for any ring. “Will you go to Carn Dûm and rescue Elladan?” she demanded, hope blossoming in her heart like a fiery flower.

“Not I, Lady.” Mithrandir looked her straight in the eye. ”If that quest should fail and all be lost, the blow will be felt hardest here in Imladris. This house is our fortress against the enemy, and I shall remain to shore up its walls.”

Elrond’s voice was sharp. “Keep your metaphors, Mithrandir. What you mean to say is that you will take possession of Vilya if I lose my senses over the death of my son.”

Suddenly the weight of all Mithrandir’s years seemed to fall on him, an ancient well of sorrow. “No, my friend,” he replied, laying a hand on Elrond’s shoulder as if to comfort. “The Witch-king will have no such mercy. He will not kill, but maim and torture, and then he will come to your gates to barter. Elrond, you were entrusted with the mightiest of the Three Rings. Vilya is the prize Sauron desires most. I shall make sure that you hold on to it.” 

By their very nature the Ainur were mother- and fatherless and bore no children. Mithrandir had no concept of the soul-deep connection, the mingled love and pain that was kinship. 

_ His kind are nothing like us.  _ Celebrían shivered at the thought. 

Mithrandir seemed to know it, for without ceremony he pulled Narya from his finger. The ruby’s facets caught the Fëanorian crystal overhead, sending stains of red light flickering across his face. 

Celebrían stared, transfixed, until she realized he was waiting for her with his hand outstretched, the ring on his open palm. 

“Put it on, Lady. Narya will keep Elrohir’s mind from the Witch-king’s hold, so he can lead you to Elladan.”

Celebrían could only stare at the golden circle before her, shock and revulsion tying her tongue until she swallowed them at last. “I am no Noldo, to be wielding the trinkets of the Mírdain.”

Mithrandir was matter-of-fact. “If both your mother and your husband can manage, so should you.”

Celebrían was also Celeborn’s daughter, scion of Doriath, a Sinda born and bred. She recoiled at this despised Noldorin artifice, the last work of Fëanor’s doomed House. “Those rings are a perversion of nature,” she retorted. “An abomination.”

Mithrandir had little patience for it. “Lady, there are but two ways about this. You can rescue your son, or you can keep your Sindarin principles unsullied. Choose one.” 

Narya blazed like a crown of licking flames against his calloused palm. An image came to her, a flash of remembrance beating against her mind like the flapping wings of birds. Círdan, Galadriel and Gil-galad doing battle before the ruined walls of Barad-dûr. The three ring-bearers had been radiant, shining like stars with the light of their united wills. Sauron himself had bent to them, in the end. How could she refuse such power, now that it might save her son?

Reaching out to take the ring was hard, as if her hand were made of wood, and it took another endless moment before she managed it. Mithrandir’s palm was rough against her fingertips as she lifted the smooth circle of gold. 

Celebrimbor’s doom gleamed red and alien against her own skin. The stone shone a rich, fiery crimson. She held it up to the light and inspected the overlapping bars of light in the ruby’s flickering depths, cut with exquisite precision by a master’s hand. Then she slid the ring around her finger and

… _ oh! _

Alive and yet not, a whorl of thrumming light and heat. Celebrimbor had harnessed the complex equations that governed matter itself into this many-faceted object, so much more than a simple band of metal—a flame that burned but did not consume 

She stumbled and staggered, kept from falling only by Elrond’s quick reflexes. When she came back to herself, Narya glowing at the edges of her mind, Mithrandir did not smile, but his expression burned like a fire in the night. He embraced her, rough and brief. “Go now, daughter of the West. Go forth with every blessing in my power to give. Desperate you may be, but do not believe yourself forsaken.” 

Celebrían felt lighter than she had since Borndis’ return. She failed to notice the tears in Elrond’s eyes until he gently took her arm. 

“I should be in your stead,” he whispered against her lips as he kissed her. His mouth tasted of salt. “Let us exchange our rings and our places. Let me go to Carn Dûm, and bear this for you.”

Vilya shone like a shard of summer sky fallen to Elrond’s hand. At the sight, Celebrían realized with blunt, shocking certainty that whatever Elrond would be called upon to do if their quest failed and he was faced with his loved ones in chains, she  _ could not _ do it. 

“No, my love,” she replied, and stroked his face with tender regret. “I beg you, do not make me choose. You were always the stronger one.” 

\----

The frozen ground was cold as death, but the sand mercifully contained a small hollow beneath Elladan’s face that neatly cradled his bruised cheek. If he closed his eyes, willing his mind away from Canissë’s corpse in its spreading pool of mingled fluids, he might rest his head there with only a trace of pain.

It somehow made him feel less exposed—despite knowing full well how exquisitely vulnerable he was, lying on his front stripped of weapons and armour, his hands securely tied behind his back. The very care taken not to maim him by pulling the bindings tight enough to damage his hands was terrifying. His captors wanted him with something left to lose. He had tested his bonds so thoroughly his wrists and ankles were bleeding regardless. 

The biting cold was Elladan’s only hope. Like Canissë he had been stripped, but where her corpse sprawled naked, Elladan had been left in his linen undertunic, damp with sweat, blood and the chill morning dew. His muscles had given up their shivering hours ago. He felt himself go limp and still, every second a slow descent into an icy fog from which there would be no waking. It seemed a mercy, the best possible end. 

Elladan tried to dwell on Canissë’s final moments, the sheer brutality, the sight and smells and screams—if only to honour his loyal guard’s sacrifice. He was astonished to find he could no longer recall any of it. Canissë’s battered corpse told the tale, and even a warrior as hardy as she must have howled and begged while she was torn apart, called for her lord, her long-lost mother, the very Valar who once banished her. 

Elladan found that he could retrieve neither sight nor sound of it from the recesses of his mind gone strange. Judging by the stinking puddle beginning to freeze solid beside his head, and the soiled state of his undershirt, he must have vomited at some point during the gruesome proceedings. When exactly, he could not say. Thinking hurt, as did breathing and he was so painfully, utterly alone. He had been foolish enough to reach out for Elrohir’s spirit only once, meeting only the deafening throb of evil, the Ringwraith’s presence like a toxic fume wafting into the open mind. Elladan knew he was lost. He closed his eyes and willed his body to go cold enough to let his fëa fly free.

_ He  _ had been watching, waiting for sleep to set in so he might snatch away even that final mercy. Elladan’s eyes had closed for a mere heartbeat before a pailful of cold, stinking water cut off his breath. Even as he struggled to arch his back so his face was lifted above the puddle forming in the hollow, Elladan counted his blessings. Prisoners had been drowned in fouler things than ditchwater.

Rough hands pulled him to his feet and he went limp as a rag. The bearded Hillman backhanded him across the face so hard he felt his cheekbone crack. 

“Stand!”

Elladan let himself drop back to the ground like a sack of flour. The stream of blood spouting from his nose was shockingly warm as it ran down his face and chest. All he felt was bleak disappointment. A merciful death from exposure was no quick thing for those with the blood of the Eldar. 

“Now look, he’s filthy!” a second Hillman exclaimed as he pulled Elladan to his feet once more. 

“It’s only blood. He already got sick all over himself before I ever touched him! It doesn’t matter, the Orcs will eat him even if he’s covered in shit!”

“You fool! This one’s for the King!” 

“Either way he ain’t gonna walk. You take his feet!”

Despite being hobbled Elladan got a few satisfying kicks in. He had almost managed to provoke them into causing him genuine injury when the Ringwraith appeared.

Elladan’s eyes darted to Canissë’s body. The Ringwraith followed his gaze. 

“Elves are feeble. The finest sport must always come last for they cannot be kept embodied after. Mortals endure so much more, but they are coarser. I crave to see whose blood prevails in you, Peredhel!” 

Terror can paralyse even the strongest, and in the end Elladan hung limp as dead meat when it lifted him in a vile mockery of a parent cradling a child, the icy hands a horror upon his flesh. He could no longer fight, but with every ounce of strength in him he tried to push himself away from that miasma of despair washing over him, away from this place of horrors. He fought to wake, for all this must be a dark dream, a nightmare; he would wake and Elrohir would be there. Elrohir would come find him. 

\-----

Elrohir stood as Celebrían entered the solar, and it was a blessed relief to find him calm and composed. He still wore the formal robes Ardil dressed him in. This particular set was new—heavy, night-blue silk with the star of their House embroidered in a wide band of cloth-of-silver around the sleeves and neckline. The cut and colour looked just right on him, drawing out his eyes and the straight, muscular line of his shoulders. 

With a jolt Celebrían recognized Elladan’s hand in the rich garment. Elrohir had never cared for finery. Left to his own devices her younger son would spend his days in little more than his guards’ uniforms and hunting leathers. Elladan, ever the skilled politician, had an exquisitely developed sense for clothes and what they represented, and he made sure his brother looked the part.

Celebrían shuddered at the stakes of their quest. Her sons functioned as halves of a single whole. Whether Elladan’s amputation might prove survivable remained to be seen. 

She touched Elrohir, a gentle hand against the cool skin of his cheek, and turned his face towards her. He let her look, truly see him without reservation or deceit. Shadow was heavy on his spirit. The Black Breath, doubtlessly from Elladan, but she could counter it, scorch him clean with Narya’s bright brilliance. 

“We shall go after Elladan,” she said at last, and delighted as hope rekindled in Elrohir’s eyes. “You, Glorfindel, and I. No others. We have a plan, but we shall keep our counsel. You must only tell us where to go.”

He looked upon her with gratitude, smiling that beautiful, fragile smile she knew so well. “That, I can do.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year everyone!   
> The first update of 2021 brings an unusual rescue mission, and a trip to Carn Dûm for Elladan. What do you guys think about Celebrían's dilemma, and poor Elladan's situaion? A comment or kudos would be much appreciated.   
> See you soon,  
> Idrils Scribe


	10. Chapter 10

The sun rose red and gold over Rhudaur’s tumbled hills. The land lay shrouded in mist, and bars of streaking light set the pale whorls aglow like a shifting sea of cool flame. A chill wind blew from the Misty Mountains, carrying a hint of snow. The very air tasted fresh and clean as if to spite the filth and gore of war. In hazy distance to their west, a lone skylark jubilated the day’s glory as it soared to the open sky.

Elrohir righted himself and breathed deeply. The haunted night had passed like a foul dream and he was once more in the world he knew. Great skies and rolling hills, Rochael’s steady gait eating up the miles, and the well-known weight of armour on his shoulders, a shield against dangers that could be fought with sword and bow. Such battles Elrohir could win, and he would. 

“Orcs, you say?” he asked Celebrían as she kneed her grey charger alongside. “Hillmen might be more suited to our purpose.”

His mother looked sharp, invigorated, beyond the reach of the sleepless night’s shadows—a captain commanding her troop. 

She exchanged a look with Glorfindel, who flanked Elrohir’s other side. “Orcs will attract less scrutiny, if we are to enter Carn Dûm,” she decided. “We need but a small company. I expect you know where to find one?”

Elrohir smiled, sharp and vicious. “I know just the place.”

\----

Back in the evil days, when Tarks and those horrible light-eyed Golug held the North, Lugdash’s tribe hid from their bright swords in the hills. A poor life it had been, gnawing on measly rabbits and what cattle they could scrabble from the outermost rim of human habitations. But then came the King, and the Orcs had taken over. 

These were good times, times of plunder rich with blood and marrow, and Lugdash had done well for himself. Perhaps spoils were richer nearer the Tarkish cities, but there the High Ones, the King’s black-robed captains with their fell, burning eyes, held command. Any Orc who wanted to keep his guts inside his belly had to tread carefully around _them_. Here, in the blackened skeleton of what had once been a remote farmstead on the Ettenmoors, Lugdash ruled as master of all life. 

Much of the Tarks’ food and drink reeked so disgustingly of Elves that it was barely good enough for feeding the Snágas, but the Hillmen of Rhudaur offered better fare. Once the men were gutted and a nest of women and their squealing offspring dragged up from the cellar, Lugdash’s warriors found several barrels of palatable ale and a side of salted pork. They had eaten the juiciest flesh first, mouths full and chins dripping with fat, but the pork would come in handy now that the last of the women had gone from nightly entertainment to dinner. 

Lugdash waved, and a Snága hurried to refill his tankard. The girl was a recent purchase, a mountain goblin from a clan so poor and ravenous that a small, pockmarked daughter could be had in exchange for a goat’s carcass. Everything about her was tiny—her petite figure, the gnarled chain of her backbone permanently bent in terrified submission, her yellow eyes pressed into slits against the unfamiliar sunlight. She had the pallid grey skin of her cave-dwelling breed. Lugdash found it exotic, and he had spent many a long, bright summer day pounding her into his bedroll to the cheers and whistles of his warriors. 

At the recollection, Lugdash roughly yanked the girl towards him by the wrist. He would make the most of her, before his fortunes fell again. She came to him with eyes downcast and a small huff of indrawn breath that might have been fear, or disgust, or the beginnings of a sob. Lugdash was not particularly interested.

In that sweet instant of savouring her submission he realized something was wrong. The throng of warriors playing knucklebones in the ruined stable had fallen silent. A strange, oppressive quiet lay over the courtyard outside. Lugdash was a veteran of many a raid, and he had heard _this_ before. All lust forgotten he spun around, sword in hand. 

A waking nightmare loomed in the doorway. 

Here was a truly monstrous Golug. The eyes were foul glimmers of malice, its skin smooth and pale as a wraith’s, the fell hiss of its voice a torment to the ears. A terrible star shone on its forehead, and Lugdash let out a shriek of rage and terror both. This was the Burner, dreadful prince of that vale of horrors Men called Rivendell, who once devoured an entire army. 

In that one stilled heartbeat of indecision, Lugdash felt the small, telltale stir in the air behind his back. He whipped around to face his peril. 

Lugdash had been a fool, to let that traitorous piece of cave-dwelling shit have as much as a blunt skinning knife. The lazy bitch had sucked at scraping hides with it, but she did manage to sink the rusted blade into him to the hilt. 

\---- 

A wet sound bubbled up when the big Orc went down, punctured lungs drawing their final, bloodied breaths. Elrohir stepped forward, deftly dodging the twitching limbs to plant his dagger in its throat. 

The first Orc put out of its misery, he turned to its smaller companion. Faced with an Elf-warrior, this little Snága had chosen to skewer its captain instead. Here was something Elrohir had not seen before in all his years battling Orcs. He could not help himself. Instead of slitting the creature’s throat as he should have, he asked.

“Why?” 

The Snága rose from its crouch, neck at a strange angle from looking him in the eye despite its crooked spine. 

“Gah!” With a wordless cry of hate it spat on the big Orc’s body, then kicked it in the face. Its boot met the corpse’s lolling head with a dull, earthy thud. 

Elrohir knew that look, and his heart sank. He had seen that same ferocious hatred burning in the eyes of a thousand women over the years of Arnor’s violent, drawn-out decay. Some wept themselves hoarse, others froze into silence, or went on pretending that it never happened until their bellies told the tale for them. And some … some avenged themselves. Elrohir had long ago found that he could not fault them. 

If killing this she-Orc had been difficult before, it was fast growing impossible.

The Snága seemed to smell his doubt like a wolf smells fear. “Eat me then, Burner! Get it over with,” she snarled, yellow fangs flashing in the hut’s half-light.

“I will not eat you,” Elrohir blundered. Then, in a wild rush of desperation. “What will you do if I let you go?”

She laughed without mirth, a wild and desperate look in her eyes. “Find the bastard who sold me to this one and kill him, too.” Another kick to the sprawling corpse, between the legs this time.

Elrohir’s hand kept a white-knuckled grip on his sword-hilt, but could not bring himself to raise the weapon and do his duty. “Where is he?” 

“At Carn Dûm, may it rot!” She spit again, and for an absurd moment of mutual fascination their eyes met over the glob of spittle as it dripped down the dead Orc’s cheek. 

A terrible thought came to Elrohir’s mind. “Were you kept prisoner at Carn Dûm?”

The question loosened an avalanche of rage. “Angmar’s Orcs came to the mountains to take. Our men for the war, and us for their spoils. All winter I’ve shovelled their dung and turned their spits!” 

The she-Orc’s yellow eyes were pools of hate. Here was some common ground. The very idea was foul, foul and low and absolutely unprecedented, but so was Elladan’s capture. If ever there had been a time for unspeakable deeds, this was it. 

Elrohir spoke without hesitation. “I can grant your wish. Lead me into Carn Dûm undetected, and I will raze it to the ground!”

The she-Orc stood perplexed. “Why?”

Elrohir knew better than to give intelligence to an Orc, but he could not help spilling his misery. 

“They took something dear to me … ” His voice broke, and it allowed him to catch himself before he would tell her anything more. “What is your name?” he asked, turning their talk back to her.

“Ghâshka.” 

_Fire-woman. How fitting._ And how disturbing a thought, that Orcs would capture one another’s essence in names the way Elves did. 

“I am Elrohir, son of Elrond. You will be my guide, Ghâshka, and I shall carry out your vengeance, so I swear by ...” this was no time to mention the Valar “... by the Secret Flame.”

Ghâshka’s eyes went wide at something behind Elrohir’s back. Glorfindel and Celebrían stood in the doorway.

“An alliance with an Orc, and an unbreakable Oath. I know not which should grieve me more.” Celebrían seemed barely surprised.

“You approve,” Elrohir answered, astonished. 

“Whatever gets us into Carn Dûm,” she replied, dryly.

Glorfindel’s eyes gave away nothing of his thoughts.

“Glorfindel … “ Elrohir knew not what to say. How could a warrior of Valinor, Manwë’s own envoy, ever approve of such a thing?

Glorfindel nodded, his face hard. “If we must meet Findaráto’s end, at least we will try every possible way.” 

\----

The sun had begun to sink towards the western hills when they gathered the dead Orcs’ gear into a stinking heap. Much of it was ruined, pierced by arrows or soaked through with blood or fouler things, but they managed to piece together an acceptable selection. 

Celebrían helped Elrohir don the Orc-captain’s leather gambeson over his own undershirt. For an instant Elrohir stood wondering at the garment’s unfamiliar texture. The tanning was ill-done and the hide’s pattern like no leather Elrohir had ever seen. As his searching fingers slid down the sleeve Celebrían cast him a wordless look of grief. Elrohir’s skin crawled. For an instant of blind horror he wanted nothing more than to take a knife to the gruesome thing, get it away from his body—to either burn it to ashes or give it a decent burial. Celebrían’s hand closed around his, gentle but firm. 

“Peace, Elrohir. We made it this far, and now you must see it through.” 

Elrohir shuddered in revulsion at the knowledge of what—or rather, who—he was wearing, but he allowed her to dress him in Orcish mail and armguards, topped with a poisoned scimitar in its scabbard. Geared for war, Elrohir sank deep into his own mind for his greatest feat of Song. 

This particular art was among Galadriel’s most remarkable lessons to her grandchildren. Elrohir recalled the wet spring afternoon when he first managed it, many Mortal lifetimes ago. Green, washed light falling through new mallorn leaves as they rustled in the rain while the Lady of Lórien taught her grandson to change his appearance into an Orc’s. 

It still hurt, even with this much practice. Fangs sprouted from Elrohir’s mouth, the shape of his body grew coarser, hunchbacked, muscles bulging and face scarred with ritual carvings. Every sinew was stretched, twisted, hammered into new and alien shapes. Elrohir groaned in pain. 

Celebrían kept her distance, watching her son’s transformation without a trace of surprise on the coarse, Orcish lines of a face that still resembled her own in an uncanny way. Mere shapeshifting was nothing out of the ordinary, to one raised by Galadriel. When Elrohir’s breathing grew less laboured she approached him once more and began to remove the silver clips that had held his braids. 

Her clawed fingers struggled with the coarse, matted knots of his new Orcish hair as she tied in crude ornaments of bone and fitted him with a helmet shaped like a snarling wolf’s maw. 

Glorfindel looked truly terrifying—a massive, hulking nightmare wearing both Lugdash’s armour and the Orc captain’s snarling, fanged face. Hatred and confusion battled in Ghâshka’s eyes as she watched him at their final preparation. 

Glorfindel’s hands were swift and sure as he took a stinking blend of charcoal and grease from a dead Orc’s pack, and painted across their faces the black skull of Angmar.

> _Then sudden Felagund there swaying,_
> 
> _Sang in a song of staying,_
> 
> _Resisting, battling against power,_
> 
> _Of secrets kept, strength like a tower,_
> 
> _And trust unbroken, freedom, escape;_
> 
> _Of changing and shifting shape,_
> 
> _Of snares eluded, broken traps,_
> 
> _The prison opening, the chain that snaps._
> 
> _The Silmarillion, Chapter 19: Of Beren and Lúthien._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone,  
> Our rescue party have found themselves an unlikely guide. I'd love to hear your thoughts on my take on Orcs and their way of life, and on Elvish magic. A comment would make my day, and kudos are always nice.  
> Hang in there, and stay safe!  
> Idrils Scribe


	11. Chapter 11

> _ "Those who used the Nine Rings became mighty in their day, kings, sorcerers, and warriors of old. They obtained glory and great wealth, yet it turned to their undoing. They had, as it seemed, unending life, yet life became unendurable to them. They could walk, if they would, unseen by all eyes in this world beneath the sun, and they could see things in worlds invisible to mortal men; but too often they beheld only the phantoms and delusions of Sauron. And one by one, sooner or later, according to their native strength and to the good or evil of their wills in the beginning, they fell under the thraldom of the ring that they bore and under the domination of the One, which was Sauron's. And they became for ever invisible save to him that wore the Ruling Ring, and they entered into the realm of shadows. The Nazgûl were they, the Ringwraiths, the Enemy's most terrible servants; darkness went with them, and they cried with the voices of death." _
> 
> _ ~ The Silmarillion, Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age _

  
  


The black hood was pulled back, and Elladan blinked against the unexpected stab of light after a long dark. He stood in a great hall of night-black stone, a forest of pillars carved into eerie, twisted shapes that were neither man nor serpent and yet both at once. Monstrous stone faces leered at him from every angle. High above his head the roof was shrouded in shadow. The heavy sable banners hung from it moved weakly in invisible streams of air, fouled with that sweet, rotting smell of charnel. In this hellish place the light flickered in an unnatural, oily crimson born of alchemy. Great braziers of blackened steel lined the walls, and yet the hall was cold enough that his breath came in frosted clouds. 

_ Carn Dûm.  _

Elladan shivered as the dread of it sunk in, the last of his hopes destroyed like some tender thing squashed in an Orc’s fist. All his fervent prayers, his ironclad conviction that kept despair at bay through the ceaseless misery of a long forced march, had been but the foolish ramblings of a frightened child. Elrohir would not come. How could he? Elladan was alone. 

Darkness lay beyond the grotesque pillars, not the cool blessedness of day's end and shadow, but a living thing. It breathed.

Elladan struggled against the foul hands dragging him forward, but he was shoved, jostled, and dragged inexorably to the horror that awaited at the hall's very end.

In a fell stroke of despair he swung his bound fists and revelled in the satisfying crack and splinter of bone, but each Orc that fell screaming with black blood gushing from its ugly face was replaced with three others, snarling and furious. With the strength of the desperate he fought those, too, writhing and kicking on the ground beneath their claws, but then Fuinur strode through the gibbering ranks of his underlings. 

The Nazgûl’s hand closed on Elladan’s shoulder like an iron vice. A cold chill of dread washed over him, and he struggled no more. 

As he lay slack with horror in the Ringwraith’s grasp, his hands were released from the  manacles—the metal rasping raw skin to bleed once more—and roughly pulled behind his back to be chained again, leaving him even more defenseless than before. 

He was half-dragged, half-carried further into that dreaded hall. The red light flickered and sputtered as they approached the very heart of Carn Dûm. There, set on a tall dais against a monstrous carven pillar of writhing, reptilian beasts with skeletal wings, stood the throne of Angmar.

A vile thing of blackened iron it was, wrought in a sinister shape that both repelled the eye and attracted it in morbid fascination. Elladan’s gaze did not linger long, because upon the throne sat the Lord of Angmar, he who called himself King of the North. 

The Witch-king, the Dúnedain named him in their ignorance. Elladan knew the bitter truth: he stood before Sauron’s own lieutenant, cruelest of his many servants, twisted prince of fallen Númenor—the Captain of the Nazgûl. 

The Witch-king’s robes were of the finest silk, smooth and black as polished jet, but they were hooded. Within the drape of rich cloth shone a strange, sickly glow of eyes like windows to the Void. Nothing else lay beneath that hood, for this king had no face. 

His crown was of iron, cruelly spiked and set with three cold white jewels in mockery of the Elves. A great sword lay across his knees, the unsheathed blade reflecting the hall’s light with an iridescent glow of poison.

Beside the throne on the dais stood a man, dark-haired and grey-eyed, and in that dreadful place his handsome Númenórean face seemed disturbing in its normality. The king’s one courtier was decked out in precious ermine furs and a heavy chain of gold and rubies. Elladan had but a moment to wonder at this when he was hauled up the steps of the dais and forced to his knees before the throne. 

“My lord,” Fuinur hissed as he bowed low before his master, “your will I have fulfilled as best I could. As you planned in your wisdom, the Men willingly betrayed the foolish Elves. Their bones rot in the mud where we left them, and I bring you Elladan, son of that halfbreed usurper Elrond. His sword and banner were carried from the field and they await your will in the armoury, but now I give you Elrond’s heir.” 

This did not please the Witch-king, and with a quick, vexed wave of his black-gloved hand Fuinur was dismissed to stand beside the throne upon the dais. Anger radiated from him, suffocating the very air. 

_ Elrohir. He wanted Elrohir in my stead,  _ Elladan realized, and his eyes lingered on the dreadful black scimitar lying across the King’s knees, wondering if this was to be his death. It seemed too easy, somehow.

The King remained motionless, a looming spectre of dread upon his high throne, but the man on the dais jerked into movement, approaching Elladan to lay a hand against his face where a livid bruise covered most of his cheek. The motion was dispassionate, almost mechanical. Cold spread from its touch and Elladan wanted to scream with revulsion.

He flinched, but his hands were chained behind his back and a pair of Orcs leaned heavily on his shoulders, painfully crushing his knees against the marble steps of the dais. He shivered with cold, terror and indignation all at once. 

“A simple errand I sent you on, and yet I find it ill-done,” droned the Man, his voice flat. “He is injured, and near death from the cold. Surely Elrond of Rivendell does not send his sons onto the battlefield dressed like paupers?” Even though the words lacked anger or intonation, the question curdled the hall’s very air into hushed silence. 

The Mortal took the embroidered collar of Elladan’s undershirt between thumb and forefinger like a merchant appraising a bale of cloth. And yet no interest stirred his face, the muscles slack and eyes vacant as windows looking out on a wasteland. 

“The finest linen,” said the Man, “and well-made. Surely there was wool and leather to go with it, and Elvish armour. Where is his gear?” 

Fuinur stood silent, but some of the Orcs and Hillmen shuffled nervously. The courtier lurched to his full height, the cloth of Elladan’s undershirt torn from his grip as he rose as had he forgotten to release it. He turned to a black-clad servant standing by. “Fetch a coat for the Lord Elladan!” 

The Man stumbled a circle around Elladan’s kneeling form to where his hands were chained behind his back. They had long since gone icy and numb, and the coarse Orcish manacles had chafed both wrists to weeping sores.

“You have damaged his hands. Was I not clear in my orders?!” the Mortal thundered at Elladan’s tormentors from a slackened jaw and eyes suddenly sharpened with pain. A fell rage swept through the hall. With astonishment Elladan felt the Orcs recoil.

“Unchain him!” 

A sweating, pallid overseer came running with a set of black keys. Iron clunked and rattled as the manacles were hastily opened. Warm blood rushed back into Elladan’s battered hands, bringing torturous pins and needles in its wake. The pain was enough to make him sag in the Orcs’ grip until he hung limp from their cruel, clawed hands. 

The Mortal raged on, his eyes pinpricks and sweat springing upon his brow in the cold beneath the Witch-king’s leaden gaze. “Unhand him, you fools!”

The Orcs panted with fear as they scrambled to obey, and their stench of old sweat and terror made Elladan gag and heave as he sank to the cold marble floor. He rested there for a brief, humiliating instant while the Witch-king’s alien eyes drank in his misery. 

Then the Mortal hauled him up to standing, his face a blank, unsettling mask beneath the sheen of sweat. “Accept this humble gift as our apology, Lord.” 

Elldan found himself wrapped in a coat of wolf pelt. He should have refused it, but he no longer cared for pride as soon as its warmth enveloped him.

“Kneel, you wretches, and do penance for your disobedience!” bellowed the Mortal. Orcs and Hillmen sank to their knees as if some monstrous reaper were taking his scythe to the gathered crowd, heads bowed in abject, grovelling submission. 

“I will deal with you at my leisure,” said the courtier. “Now leave your king’s hall, that your betters may talk undisturbed!”

The Orcs’ captain, a big, burly brute of a Gundabad goblin with an Elvish skull staring empty-eyed from its helmet, rose to its feet and made to turn. 

High upon his throne the King remained silent, but one black-gloved fist rose and the miasma of dread radiating from him intensified until Elladan thought he might fall back to the black marble floor to scream and writhe and vomit at the foulness of it. 

The Orc froze mid-turn and uttered a wet, gagging sound as if it were being strangled. 

“See now how I deal with those who would disrespect me within my own hall!” exclaimed the Mortal, panting and holding himself rigid as if every muscle strained for relief, and yet it was the Witch-king who raised his fist.

The hapless Orc’s hands came up likewise in a strange, jerking motion until it stood splayed as if crucified. For a brief moment of leaden silence all in the hall waited with bated breath, and the Witch-king seemed to leisurely savour the terror burning in the Orc’s wild yellow eyes. 

Then came the screams. Desperate and tortured cries, the sound of nightmares made flesh. Elladan knew not by what twisted art of sorcery the Witch-king was tormenting his disgraced slave, but the Orc’s agony was a horror to behold. The beast writhed and howled in senseless panic. Corded muscles clenched and bulged out of their owner’s control, and with one dry, unbearable  _ snap  _ after another the Orc’s impossible contortions ripped its own shoulders from their sockets.

The dreadful screams grew softer and wetter when blood began to bubble from the Orc’s mouth to form a dripping, frothed mass of black foam. Beneath his hood the King’s luminous eyes grew fell with the mad, visceral joy of the kill. At last, after an eternity of suffering, the Orc’s writhing ceased and it died, hanging slack in the King’s sorcerous grip. A stinking puddle of blood and excrement pooled on the black marble beneath. 

Silence blanketed the hall, and the Mortal courtier advanced once more, his limbs lurching as if pulled by string. At last Elladan understood that here stood no living man, but the gutted husk and ruin of one.

“You will crawl from my presence like the cowardly worms you are,” cried the Witch-king through his servant’s mouth. “Take  _ that  _ with you, and clean his filth from my floors. Those who serve me well find a generous table upon their return, but I waste no bread on the likes of you! You will dine on the floor with the Wargs. Share with them the flesh of every last impudent fool found in possession of my guest’s belongings. Be gone!” And with that, the man sagged where he stood, empty and, for the moment, forgotten. 

To a man, Orcs and Hillmen left the hall on all fours like dogs. The Snágas among them rushed to wipe the floor with their own tattered cloaks before dragging away their former master’s corpse. 

The King kept a keen eye on them as they crawled, savouring their debasement. Fuinur, too, made a low bow as if to depart. The King’s eyes flared red, and a sharp, impatient gesture kept the disgraced Ringwraith standing on the dais a few steps beneath the throne.

At last the hall’s iron doors slammed shut behind the last Orc with a dull thud like a hammer-strike. Elladan shivered in terror, for now the King’s attention turned to him. 

If he had expected anything, it was not to be set in a carved chair upon the dais and passed a steaming cup of hot wine as if he might drink instead of using it as a projectile. The Mortal took a seat beside Elladan and faced him in a strange mockery of a courtly reception, but with eyes blown wide and black, their grey but a thin rim of color about emptiness. 

“Elladan of Rivendell, son of the House of Eãrendil. You are most welcome at my court. I apologize for the rudeness of my subordinates.”

Elladan knew all the words and phrases that would properly greet a king before his court, had spoken them a thousand times during his many years as his father’s envoy, but now he could not summon them to his lips. All his well-learned eloquence deserted him, so great was the horror of what sat before him and the dread of the Witch-king and his lieutenant looming over them from his high throne.

He swallowed hard, throat stinging with unshed tears, but in the end he raised his head. He would not quiver before Sauron’s miserable, ring-snared thralls, would not grant them the satisfaction of seeing a son of the House of Eärendil show the fear, the weakness they would delight in. The thought of Elrohir filled his mind like a talisman, and Elladan mustered every shred of courage that he could. He straightened his shoulders, and though his heart trembled he looked the Man in the eye. 

His voice was clear and steady as he spoke. “You are of the Dúnedain. Why do you serve the Enemy of your people?” 

Something small and fragile fluttered in the man’s eyes, and, for a brief moment, they came to sharp points of focus upon Elladan. The man blinked and seemed about to speak, confused and eyes searching, when terror flashed harsh upon his features. The red flame of the King’s eyes flared beneath his empty hood and the man’s face fell slack and his eyes slowly dimmed. 

“I am the King’s Mouth,” droned the man’s flat voice. “My words are his.” 

Elladan shuddered in revulsion, but the Mouth continued without pause. “Long have I desired to speak with you, Elladan, wisest and most sensible of all your kin. Much pointless strife has occurred between your House and mine, and yet we ultimately desire the same thing: order and peace for these lands. May we not lay old bitterness to rest and come to an understanding?” 

Elladan found another measure of courage in the childish transparency of this ploy, and he scoffed. “The only understanding you will ever come to has your accursed master ruling all the world as tyrant.”

The retribution was swift. Red rage flared in the Witch-king’s eyes, sending the hairs prickling across the back of Elladan’s neck, and his words petered out into silence. The King’s malice engulfed him. Terror tore through his heart, blazed through his veins and for a long, torturous moment it was unbearable. He desperately quashed the instinct to run away, disappear and hide himself like a frightened child, in some place where such evil could never find him again. How painful was now the very thought of Imladris, of the Bruinen’s sweet waters running beneath the stars. 

_ Elrohir, ai, Elrohir! Where are you!? _

But it was the Mouth’s hand that landed upon his shoulder to keep him from buckling in his chair beneath the King’s gaze, a spectre of dread looming like some monstrous bird of prey. 

“Do the Sea-kings of Westernesse not desire the very same?” asked the Mouth, voice even as if he were Erestor and they were debating philosophy over an evening cup of wine. “As we speak, Gondor’s dominion spreads across Rhûn and Harad like an oil slick. The strong rise to rule over the weak. Such is the natural order, son of Elrond. Of all your House, you alone are wise enough to see it.”

Elladan’s eyes were drawn to the tiles before the dais, where remnants of the dead Orc’s blood had dried into flakes upon the stone. Though his own lungs still drew breath he, too, was dead already, lost beyond all hope of rescue. All that remained was to die fighting, even if no one would ever sing of it. 

“So speaks the bloody-handed master of thralls,” he answered proudly, and managed to look the Mouth in his empty eyes. “In more civilized places, the right to rule does not flow from strength of arms.”

At this, a dreadful little smile pulled at the Mouth’s lips, folding his waxen face. “Tell me, son of Elrond, why is it that your proud House, descended from not one but two High Kings of the Eldar, no longer bears a crown? That your realm clings to the bare rock of the Misty Mountains instead of ruling all Eriador from a mighty city to rival Gondolin of old?”

He did not wait for Elladan’s answer, but spoke words that burned and oozed like poison. “Your father has squandered his strength of arms. Elrond foolishly ceded his crown to the usurpers who came from the Sea. Tell me, is it not by their armies alone that vainglorious fools like Arveleg rule as kings, while the scions of Finwë and Elwë ride in their train?” 

This struck Elladan like a slap. For how many sleepless nights had that very question soured his contentment? He fought to cast it from his mind, but some long-denied well of rage bubbled up in his heart. 

For one brutal moment it smashed aside fear, and despite the King’s unrelenting gaze he spat, “Bold words, from the lackey of Finwë’s murderer!”

The King’s eyes flared with such rage that even Fuinur recoiled. Terror choked the very air, billowing thick as smoke in a burning forest. 

The Mouth grimaced. “I am King nonetheless. What are you, Elladan son of Elrond? Little more than your father’s vassal. Always in his shadow, forever to follow where he leads. Does it not grow wearisome? You are pitied by the princes of Men, who live in certainty that kingship will fall to them in time.”

“I am content,” replied Elladan dutifully, and in truth wished it true.

“Elrond’s eldest son you are,” the Mouth retorted. “The crown jewel of your people in Middle-earth, mighty among Elves and Men. Justly do you desire lordship of your own, and poor were your rewards.” The Mouth’s face twisted in a cruel parody of a smile. “I shall cast the degenerate descendants of the Sea-kings from their ill-gotten thrones, and restore the rightful rulers of Ennor. You are among the very last of that noble line. Can we not come to an understanding?”

Only then did Elladan grasp the true nature of his peril, and he lashed out against the thought of what he might become at the King’s hands. “Liar! I will not suffer your insults, slave of Sauron!”

At that the Mouth winced and recoiled. A fell displeasure oozed from the throne, but a bright, sharp rage kept Elladan afloat above his panic. “You treacherous master of traitors! You shall not tarnish me like you did Brannor. Your words are poison, and hollow is that crown you wear!”

Livid silence descended upon the hall, and all Carn Dûm stood aghast. An evil glow alighted in the King’s eyes, and the very shadows appeared to thicken and curdle about the hall. Darkness like a living thing bled and writhed between the pillars, blanketing the braziers’ eerie light in unnatural gloom. Despite the hall’s vastness the walls seemed to close upon Elladan. He felt as though someone were stamping down on his chest as witchcraft coiled upon the very air, a vice tightened second by harrowing second. 

For a terrifying instant even the Mouth was stricken, and high upon the dais Fuinur cringed. The Witch-king’s wrath was crushing as the tumbling of hills. Shadows flickered and twisted hungrily as the very pillars of the hall groaned beneath its terrible weight. Elladan expected to die writhing on the black marble floor like that wretched Orc, yet for some reason the King stayed his hand.

“The taking of prisoners is lawful in war,” rasped the Mouth through clenched teeth, his smile as that of dead skin pulled tight over his jaw, ”as is the setting of a ransom. Brannor of Arthedain was promised the release of his wife and son. I have kept my word.”

A vision struck Elladan, a cold, sharp certainty like a dagger between the ribs. “You drove them into the Northern Wastes, upon the ice.”

“They are free now, in every possible sense. This was the full extent of our bargain, and I upheld it despite Brannor’s failure.”

Elladan looked at the Mouth’s stiff, inhuman face and remembered the clinging corpse-hands that took him captive. A paralytic fog of terror bled through him at the unsubtle reminder: some fates were worse than death. 

The Mouth smiled. “If you will not treat with me, then answer me this: what would Elrond of Rivendell bargain for your life?”

Fear wormed its way through Elladan’s heart. That he might be held to ransom was no new revelation, but put so bluntly before him the thought still pained him like a brand. What, in truth, might Elrond do? What terrible sacrifice would satisfy the Witch-king’s bloodlust? Either outcome of such a bargain seemed unthinkable. Even if some unholy agreement might be reached, there could be no doubt that every last one of the King’s words dripped with deceit. 

One horrific certainty dawned harsh and clear within Elladan’s heart: Elrond would make no terms. 

A trace of rational thought cut through the fog of despair. “You wanted my brother for this foul scheme of yours.”

“I wanted Elrohir of Rivendell brought before me,” replied the Mouth. “But not to offer him a crown! What king would not see justice done against a murderer? The Burner, he is called here. The Butcher of Rivendell. Ten thousand corpses did he pile up. Ten thousand who were sons and fathers and husbands.” 

“Is the sorrow of my people worth less than yours?!” demanded the Mouth, and Elladan trembled to hear the words. “Your brother will reap what he has sown. His hands reek with gore!”

Elladan shook his head, awash in the horror of it. “What Elrohir did, he did for good.”

“There is no such thing as _good_. Only order and power, and those too weak to grasp it. Elrohir understands this well enough. Why else did he send you out to be captured in his stead?”

There were no words for the foulness of that accusation, its perversity, and Elladan let out a wordless scream of rage. 

And yet it mattered little, for The Mouth continued on in that same toneless drone. “Elrohir desires to be named your father’s heir. You are wiser than your brother, and more powerful. Given the chance you would outshine him on the battlefield. Of all the times he could have ceded his captaincy to you, he chose this one.”

“No. You lie!” screamed Elladan, livid with nauseating rage.

“You know it is true,” the Mouth replied, dispassionately. “Elrohir betrayed you, and your father will never let you become more than his lapdog. Would you not be a wolf instead?”

“Elrohir did not abandon me.” Elladan tried his utmost not to sound like a small frightened boy denying the harsh reality playing out before his eyes.

“Let his deeds speak for themselves!” With a fluidity he had not shown before, the Mouth rose and closed a hand around Elladan’s arm with unnatural strength. He dragged him to his feet with such force the heavy chair rocked and clattered against the floor ere it righted itself. 

They stumbled across the stone to stand before the hall’s great windows, their coloured panes set with depictions of Darkness. A city burned beneath the fires of a great dragon; Elvish prisoners crawled like beasts; the gruesome peaks of Thangorodrim belched forth their poisonous fumes. 

With a small jolt of power the panels swung open, and icy cold assaulted Elladan despite the wolf-pelt. Elladan and the Mouth stood a thousand feet above the windswept desolation of Angmar. The north wind howled across forlorn wastelands, grey beneath a wan, gibbous moon. The tumbled plains were deserted save for a company of Orcs marching from the keep under their gruesome skull-banner, hobnailed boots thudding a dreadful rhythm upon the frozen ground. 

“Listen!” exclaimed the Mouth, holding onto Elladan’s arm with bruising force lest he hurl himself from the window to escape through death. “What do you hear outside? Naught but the wind that blows at my bidding! Should this fortress not be under siege? Why is Elrohir of Rivendell not storming my walls as we speak? Where is your father’s great muster? Where is Glorfindel of the Golden Flower?!” 

The Mouth did not allow Elladan to answer, but dragged him back to his chair before the throne. 

He did not know what he had hoped to see. Perhaps, against all wisdom, a battalion of warriors beneath the banner of Imladris? Elrohir’s shadow slipping from one hidden place to another with a deftness only Elladan’s eyes could catch? A glimmer of light upon the hillside, where the stars caught an Elvish blade? 

There was almost a gentleness to the Mouth’s voice when next he spoke. " My crows fly far, unto the very borders of Elrond’s enchanted valley. They found all the lands empty. No one will come, Elladan. They have weighed your fate in a fine calculus against their own safety, and found it a thing of little value. They have forsaken you.”

Despair overcame Elladan like an iron shackle, releasing hot, treacherous tears to run down his face. On the dais, Fuinur bent closer to drink in the sight. 

“Lies!” Elladan lashed out, near blind with hatred, “all you say are lies!”

“Why torment yourself for those who would value you so little?” cajoled the Mouth. “I will not pretend to be friend or kin, but I can be a powerful ally. Would you be king of Arnor reunited? I can make it so. I can elevate you beyond the petty lordships of Men.”

“Dishonour is all you can give me!” Elladan cried in what he hoped was a defiant tone, but his cheeks were wet with hot, shameful tears.

“Do you desire proof of my abilities?” asked the Mouth. He fell still and slumped against the table as had his strings been severed in one blow. 

It was the Witch-king who rose from his high seat with the oozing fluidity of a striking viper. Up rose his black sword. The curved blade reflected the hall’s red light with an oily sheen. Elladan shuddered with terror and grim resignation both. This was to be his fate. He desperately tried to call Elrohir’s face before his mind’s eye, have his last thought be for his brother as he once imagined with the naïve heroism of a foolish boy. Elladan stared into an abyss black as the Void, groaning with misery at this sharp, brutal loneliness. Elrohir would not come. He would have no need to. 

Fuinur leant forward, craning his invisible neck with a flame of eagerness alight in his eerie eyes, hungry as a dog waiting to lap the spilled blood at a slaughter. 

The Witch-king spun around with disturbing speed. His blade sliced skin, bone and sinew like butter with an almost laughably soft, sucking sound. 

Fuinur’s severed head disintegrated in mid air before Elladan could fully grasp that he was still alive. An empty iron circlet rolled to the flagstones with a tinny clatter. 

The Mouth paid it no heed and bent down to search amidst the empty tangle of black robes. From it he lifted an object that glistened in the ghostly light like a little star fallen to earth.

A ring.

A plain but well-formed ring of yellow gold, doubtlessly the work of a Noldorin smith, set with a single jasper, red as blood.

One of Nine.

The Mouth proffered it to Elladan as if they were a pair of lovers plighting their troth. “Accept this small token of my good faith, Lord Elladan. I will strike down all who oppose you. Together we will reunite the Northern Kingdom. You will be its rightful king: a great ruler of Men and Elves.”

Elladan could not help but look. The ring drew the eye and held it with that morbid, beguiling fascination that keeps a mouse paralysed before a snake’s strike. The gold glimmered with a light of its own, a song of great things held captured within the very gold it was made of. 

It was of a size to neatly fit Elladan’s forefinger.

Would it not be wise to take up so mighty a weapon in his own defense? He might honour the memory of his slain people, Canissë and Glingaer and so many others, and use it to avenge them. Surely he could wield its strength more capably than that lecherous fool Fuinur! With the fate of the Free Peoples of the North in the balance, who could fault him for taking this opportunity? 

With a word, just one word, Elladan might extinguish the horror that was Carn Dûm. No more that clench of fear in his father’s eyes, or the horror and loathing that bled from beneath Elrohir’s tight control. No more the sudden silence where once had been the warm touch of his brother’s mind. No more of Canissë’s battered limbs clutching at the ground as she fought to crawl free from hands that grappled and dragged her back to lie beneath them. 

And should he then be honoured in song and story, a great king of both Men and Elves, wise and benevolent in his rule, would that not be just?

It took him a disturbing amount of time to utter the word that should have sprung to his lips in a heartbeat. 

“Never.”

The Mouth’s dreadful laugh was wholly mirthless, a thing of air forced from a breast that had forgotten how to breathe on its own, and it seemed to Elladan that even the possibility of joy had fled from the world. 

“Do you cower before your own greatness, the power of what you might become? Fear is an unwise counselor. I will seek to cure it with what you do know. The choice is ever yours, son of Elrond.”

Elladan tried not to register any of what followed—not the return of the leering Orcs, the loss of warmth as the coat was stripped from him, the harsh hands closing the manacles about his wrists, and the jolt of hateful pain at being dragged away, struggling across the hall’s black flagstones. 

The cell they locked him in was of that same dark stone, cramped and small with neither bed nor bench—barely more than a coffin to contain the living. 

Even in that miserable place Elladan was not left in peace. The floor was hard and unwelcoming, as was the locked door pressed to his back, but there he sunk, all strength leached from him at the sight and the full knowledge of what would be visited on him. The cold of the stone seeped in through linen and a thin wind gibbered beneath the door, setting the cloth to snapping against his ankles. 

_ Ai, Valar save me!  _

The cell was not empty. In the dark shadows of a corner stood a small stool of coarse, unfinished wood. Upon it lay the ring, and its malicious eye dug deep into his mind. 

Huddled on the floor, Elladan clutched at his face and wept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back everyone! I hope the week is treating you kindly thus far. 
> 
> Today's chapter was both difficult and fun to write: poor Elladan is having such a terrible time of it, but on the other hand, the Witch-king makes his grand entrance, and I rather enjoyed pulling out all the stops for an unapologetically, properly evil Dark Lord ;-)
> 
> I'd love to hear your thoughts on my Witch-king and his nefarious plans, so please leave me a comment if you enjoyed the chapter. Of course kudos are lovely too.
> 
> Take care, and see you next week, when we rejoin the rescue party!  
> Idrils Scribe


	12. Chapter 12

A cruel, ice-laden wind howled straight from the Northern Wastes, lashing snow from the crags and ridges of the Ered Mithrin to lay bare their bones. 

They had come to a cold and pitiless land. 

Upon a spur of misshapen rock thrust from the mountains onto the browned plains lay Carn Dûm. High it rose, looming like a beast of prey from ancient legend. Jagged towers and battlements carved against a leaden sky. A strange reddish glow pulsed behind the slitted windows as if the keep burned from within. With that bloodied light the Witch-king’s malice radiated from every stone, every window, so that the sight of it was torment. 

Elrohir’s breath caught in his throat with a small, choking sound of despair. What hope could possibly remain for those driven into such a place?

For a moment their strange little company stood still, shrinking, staring up with unwilling eyes. Ghâshka was the first to recover. She pulled at their cloaks urgently, but spoke no word as she almost dragged them forward towards the fortress. 

The very air was tainted here. A foul, greasy coal-smoke licked and curled upwards into the sky from many chimneys to bleed into the shroud of heavy cloud shadowing the sun. 

Elrohir shuddered. This was no place for Elves. The gate loomed like a mountain, crowned with iron spikes bearing the heads of Angmar’s enemies. Their eyes stared into nothingness across the desolate plains, while carrion birds squawked from high upon the walls, eager and well-fed. Elrohir had no desire to look up and see what they squabbled over. Something crunched in the frozen mud beneath his hobnailed boot, and with a shiver of disgust he kicked the stray bone aside and turned his face to the gate.

"Not that way! No, not that way!" whispered Ghâshka. “Not the great gate!  _ They  _ will see!” The breath between her teeth seemed to rip the heavy silence like a knife tears cloth.

“They? The Nazgûl?” asked Glorfindel.

“No, the  _ others _ , the elder ones. They see through flesh and mind. Even Elves can keep no secrets, before the Watchers!” hissed Ghâshka. Her face crumpled in a grimace, and with a jolt of panic Elrohir realized that she was cowering in terror.

“Come this way! Smaller entrance by the slave-pens, for Snágas!” Ghâshka steered them off the main road, towards a narrow track where roughshod feet had trod the snow to muddy sludge. It led to a sally port set in the wall. 

As they marched beneath the small side gate Elrohir reached his clawed hand to touch the stones of Carn Dûm, and sensed dark power leaching from them like poison. The very keep seemed sentient, wrought from spell as much as stone. An evil heart beat within its walls, a malevolent will corrupting all inside to the very core. Panic and pity for Elladan near-choked Elrohir. The world about him reeled and his mind darkened. His step grew reluctant. Time itself seemed to slow so that between raising a foot and setting it down minutes of loathing passed.

Glorfindel—Lugdash now—brusquely turned on him, fanged mouth twisted into a scowl of contempt, to push him forward into the gaping maw of the gate.

\----

The darkness behind his eyelids seemed the safest place, and Elladan lay still and watched as dancing stains of light roiled and pulsed in gentle, lapping waves. For a time he let himself drift, floating in disjointed half-sleep, but even there lay danger. Within the sheltering darkness sprang a light, and in its wake an inescapable reality. 

He sat upon marble steps leading down into an enclosed garden. Cold, clear water sang in a rill at his feet, and tufts of moss and artfully stunted maples formed a living sculpture against the glazed mosaics of the surrounding walls. A flock of small birds chattered in the branches. They were all robins—little darting drops of red.

Behind him lay a loremaster’s study, lavishly decorated in a classical Noldorin style and housing a king’s ransom in ancient scrolls and books. Tables set against the walls held elegant devices of metal and glass. Some Elladan knew and used himself to analyse the motions of stars and planets, encrypt messages or break apart light and matter into their very essence. At the others he could only guess, and he wondered whose workroom he had wandered into.

“Welcome and well met, Son of Elrond!” 

Elladan startled. He had not heard the imposing master of this place enter, and neither did he see a door leading into the room or the walled garden. They appeared to be wholly enclosed. His host was tall and broad-shouldered, dark of hair, and he wore myriad small, eight-pointed stars embroidered in gold thread upon the lavish trim of his red robes.

With a jolt of awe and fear both, Elladan understood why he had no recollection of these rooms. 

_ This place was razed to the ground an Age ago. _

Even so, it seemed rude to ignore so polite a greeting, be it from a Houseless spirit locked inside a memory. “Lord Celebrimbor. Did you not pass into Mandos’ halls?”

Curufin’s long-dead son did not bat an eye, but pulled up an elegant chair inlaid with mother-of-pearl so he might join Elladan in the innermost garden of lost Ost-in-Edhil. As he sat down the bright midday sun reflected in his heavy golden brooch, and for the briefest of instants the flash of light looked wrong—red as blood. 

“Part of me remains, kinsman,” answered Celebrimbor. “A Maker’s spirit resides in his works.”

“The rings remember you. Are fragments of you spread between them, or is this place inside each ring at once?” Elladan shuddered to imagine such a rending of the feä. 

“Save your pity.” Celebrimbor smiled as he reached over to a small table where a crystal carafe had been set in a bucket of ice. He poured a fragrant yellow wine into silver cups and smiled. “My rings are not evil, as a concept.”

Elladan accepted the offered drink, and unthinkingly brought the cup to his lips before startling so hard he almost dropped it. 

The wine was red.

“And yet Sauron has touched them all,” he replied as he poured it onto the grass.

“Not all of them, kinsman,” said Celebrimbor, ignoring the spill at his feet. “Some he never laid hands on. You know of the Three, do you not?” An eager little flash of red flickered in Celebrimbor’s eyes. 

“They are beyond your reach,” Elladan answered. 

In silence Celebrimbor reached for the carafe to refill his cup. The movement exposed his wrists, and now Elladan noticed red rings of skinned flesh where iron manacles had chafed to the bone. 

“Does your father bear one of the Three?” asked Celebrimbor as he leant back, cup in hand, his eyes locking into Elladan’s. 

Silence fell like a leaden blanket.

“Your power could equal his, if you would but take up a ring of your own,” said Celebrimbor eventually.

Behind the windows a flickering red glow filled Celebrimbor’s study, and Elladan thought he could smell the priceless books as they burned—scorched skin and an alien, chemical stench. Celebrimbor did not move a muscle as his life’s work went up in flames.

“No.” The word seemed to tear its way through Elladan’s windpipe. Celebrimbor’s eyes shone a deep, lambent red. 

Suddenly the light in the garden was all  _ wrong _ , and with a jolt of horror Elladan realized that the murmuring brook had fallen silent, the water dead and still. The clouds overhead roiled as in a storm, lurid whorls the purple of a fresh bruise. The maples stretched bare, ruined branches to a sky that seemed to bleed a menacing red.

The thing with Celebrimbor’s face smiled, and between curling lips the teeth were those of a snarling Warg. “I died a dreadful death, Son of Elrond. Yours will be worse still, unless you take up your future.”

\----

Ghâshka’s chosen entrance led to the kitchens. Trailing behind her like they belonged here seemed the sensible thing to do. At first glance Celebrían did not feel so out of place. Barracks are the same wherever one goes—whether soldiers were Elvish or of Orc-kind: upon making it back to base they would all be rallying for hot food. 

The similarities extended no further though, she realized as she watched a pair of pale, grey-skinned Snágas sweat and singe beside the great hearth as they toiled to evenly turn a spitted body. Celebrían froze as if struck, and had to breathe through a sickening wave of disgust. Both Elrohir and Glorfindel seemed entirely unaffected, and with a sharp stab of compassion she realized that this was their everyday reality, out in the wilds of Eriador. Here, at the desolate edge of the Northern Wastes where no crop could take nonetheless stood a great citadel crawling with Orcs. What would they eat but their prisoners?

Dread struck her at the thought of Elladan. The turning corpse was charred and blistered beyond recognition. One could not tell whether it had once been man or woman, Elf or Mortal. Elrohir had given no sign of distress, and Celebrían could only hope that he would sense his brother’s death even here. 

Ghâshka efficiently moved their company through the great, echoing space that was the kitchen, and strange glances were cast at Glorfindel and Elrohir. Here only she-Orcs passed, an eerie reversal from Elvish kitchens where cooking was men’s work. The mood was calmer here, almost pleasant, as if the women had agreed to a truce in the absence of their quarrelsome menfolk. A circle of them clustered around a great vat of some unidentifiable cloudy liquid, busily stirring. Others sat kneading coarse dough or chopping tubers. Celebrían watched one nurse its tiny Orcling as it worked, struck by the unpleasant realization that the scene was not so different from what could be seen at home.

Beyond the kitchen proper lay an abandoned storehouse, dark and dusty, clogging the nose with the stench of old grease gone rancid. Ghâshka kept a brisk pace towards the back, but Glorfindel deftly closed the door behind them and reached out a big, clawed hand to turn Ghâshka around to face him. The Orc-woman shuddered beneath his touch. 

“We have little time,” Glorfindel demanded. ”Soon someone will notice that we have no place to go and no tasks to tend to.” He seemed to skewer her with his gaze. “Ghâshka, where do they keep the prisoners?”

“Those for work and meat, they keep in the pens. The one you seek will be for questioning—in the King’s tower.”

“Show us the way.” Glorfindel's voice was cold as Carn Dûm itself.

“I can’t! Only warriors go there, not women! They’ll skin me like a rabbit!” Ghâshka’s eyes went wild and white-rimmed in her sallow face.

“You must!” pleaded Elrohir. “You have kept your end of our bargain. You must lead us to the king if you want me to keep mine.”

“I’ve seen you lot cower before the gate. None of you can do him in!” Suddenly Ghâshka was crying, great wet sobs of panic. 

With a sinking sensation Celebrían realized that they were at this Orc’s mercy. Ghâshka only had to cry out and they would be captured. It was hard not to think of Finrod and his Ten. Celebrían knew she lacked the strength to watch her sons be tortured. She would offer up all she knew, and the innermost counsels of the High Elves would be laid bare and ruined. 

Glorfindel caught his lady’s eye with sharp, silent understanding.

Ghâshka appeared to calm herself a little, and now her voice came out even, but no less terrifying for it. “You will be found out, and then the big ones’ll wonder who let you in! They’ll strip poor Ghâshka’s skin and throw what’s left of me to the wargs!”

Elrohir thought to lay a hand on her shoulder, to comfort and convince her to lead them the final steps of the way. Before his gloved hand could touch her a flash of silver moved, quick as an eagle striking. Glorfindel had retreated before Elrohir could grasp what was happening. 

Ghâshka slumped to the ground in absolute silence, an Elvish dirk sprouting from her eye socket. 

Elrohir was a warrior to the core. He neither screamed nor startled, and neither did he fall to his knees to salvage the irreversible, but the look he gave Glorfindel held such dark rage that for a moment Celebrían grew afraid of her own son.

“She would have betrayed us,” Glorfindel said, unfazed. “She was considering it all along, and made up her mind at the gates. Bringing the likes of us in as prisoners would have brought her rich rewards.”

“No! She was terrified. She would have been skinned alive!” Elrohir hissed, pale with rage. 

Glorfindel gave him a dark look. “In that case she will thank me for the death I gave her instead.”

“She deserved to live!” said Elrohir, looking far more shocked than a single dead Orc would warrant.

“What would you have me do, Elrohir, if all things went your way?” Glorfindel shook his head as if berating a foolish child. “Take her to Imladris!? She was an Orc, marred to the very core. The only escape from such bondage is through Mandos.”

“Who do you think you are, to deal death in judgement?” demanded Elrohir, his eyes shining with tears.

“ _ I _ am a warrior,” interrupted Celebrían sternly. “A warrior caught behind enemy lines, and time is running out. Shall we debate ethics until we are captured? Remember for whom we came!” On her hand, Narya thrummed with hidden power, and she noted how Elrohir’s eyes widened at the sight of her anger. 

He turned from Ghâshka’s corpse, instantly on alert at the reminder of Elladan. “They will raise the alarm if she is found. We must hide her.” His eyes roved the half-dark store room, over empty grain sacks and piles of rubbish.

“Here!” He found an empty barrel that must once have contained salted pork, judging by the pungent odor that wafted up as he lifted the lid. It would hide the corpse-smell from keen Orcish noses—for a time. 

Ghâshka’s empty husk was light as a bird in Elrohir’s arms, and yet Celebrían could tell how hard he found it to pull Glorfindel’s dirk from her eye with a wet, sucking pop, fold the small, slender body in half and stuff it into the barrel’s cramped space. 

“May the stars shine upon your face,” Elrohir whispered, and the Elvish blessing seemed a sacrilege given how he was leaving her. Celebrían could not bear to look at his strange, absent expression as he sealed the barrel, weighing the wooden lid with a rock in a final indignity. 

Glorfindel stood and watched with an unfathomable look in his eyes. He was right on one count: compassion was a luxury they could no longer afford.

From her Orcish rucksack, Celebrian drew three tightly folded grey cloaks and firmly ordered the men under her command. “Hide beneath these, and we can walk unnoticed. We no longer need a guide. The master of the house will be in his hall.”

\----

“I have a gift for you, Brother.”

Elrohir’s smile as he opened the kennel door was the one he kept exclusively for Elladan: not his widest, but a perfect, open expression of his delight in their closeness. 

Inside the high, white-washed space the alaunts yipped and barked in doggish enthusiasm at their master’s entrance. Elrond’s younger son was a great friend to all good beasts. 

Elrohir stepped into the pen, and for an instant Elladan lost sight of him as the great warhounds leapt to their muscular hind legs to get closer to their two-legged brother-in-arms, and smell and nuzzle him. Elrohir laughed and stroked and chattered some particular nonsense to each one in turn. His life had depended on these burly Orc-hounds many a time, and theirs on him. They shared the easy companionship of fellow warriors, and for a moment Elladan felt the sharp sting of rejection. He hunted boar with these hounds on occasion, but the pack would never show him the blind devotion they gave Elrohir. 

“Come in, Elladan!” 

With a strange frisson of doubt Elladan entered the pen—whatever it was Elrohir wanted to show him in there, he could not tell. Fresh, fragrant herb-straw crackled beneath his boots. 

Elrohir led him into the furthest corner, and Elladan’s heart skipped a beat in pure and simple joy. A brindle bitch was lying in a padded wicker basket, suckling a litter of newborn pups. 

Elrohir knelt beside her to gently lift each squirming little furball from its teat, weighing and inspecting, his capable hands tender but thorough. He smiled upon finding all of the pups healthy and plump. “Are they not beautiful? I talked Grandmother into lending me her finest sighthound for their sire. Proper companions for a hunting prince. You shall chase deer with them soon.”

Elrohir’s gift was thoughtful, but for a brief instant Elladan could only feel shame. These were not the stout, coarse-haired hounds of a warrior, but elegant creatures bred for nothing more substantial than the pleasure of the hunt. Where Elrohir did battle, Elladan lived the life of a pampered prince, and even their dogs underlined the difference.

“Do you not like my gift?” A strange eagerness alighted in Elrohir’s eyes and for an instant a small flash of red played in the dark of his pupils. “Perhaps I shall use them myself. We need much meat to feed my friends. They are always hungry.”

Elladan hurried to say no, and how much he appreciated so thoughtful a present, but it was too late.

Elrohir’s hand rose in a quick signal, and the alaunts seemed to go mad with an ear-splitting din of growls and barks. A great body smashed into Elladan and he was knocked to the ground. Harsh, ripping pain set his entire body alight as the pack descended on him. He had never tried to imagine how these hounds would deal with an Orc. Now he knew. 

“Elrohir! Help me!” Elladan begged between cries of pain.

Elrohir sat on his haunches, calmly stroking the suckling bitch. He leant forward and reached out a hand to touch Elladan’s face as he writhed in the hounds’ tearing jaws, a cynical mockery of brotherly affection. When Elrohir drew back his bloodied hand the bitch’s eyes glowed red as her maw, and eagerly she licked Elladan’s blood from his fingers. 

"Oh, Elladan," Elrohir said, laughing still, "what do you think I found when I went to Carn Dûm in search of you?" He smiled again that sweet, special smile. "Ever you were the weaker one, unwilling to sully your own hands."

The gleam of gold and jasper upon Elrohir’s hand was a horror even greater than the red that lit his eyes, and Elladan wept as he died.

\----

He fought himself back to consciousness from the foul mire of his dream, a cry of horror curdling on his lips. He must not scream. The sound might draw the Orcs. Cold assaulted his senses, sapping the very life from him, and yet not numbing but painful. He wanted nothing more than to curl up around the useless clumps of limp flesh that were his hands— _ his hands! _ —and simply cease to feel. Instead he brought them beneath the thin linen of his undershirt and pressed them to himself until warmth made the flesh scream with living agony once more. 

Elladan was almost glad for the pain. He should not sleep. In this hell dreams were poison. How long had it been? The last he had closed his eyes, it had seemed years. Surely he would have died of hunger long ere now. Or, and the thought clenched at his throat, had the Witch-king's black arts chained fëa to withered hröa to prevent even that escape?

_ Elrohir! Ai, Elrohir.  _

Elladan knew not whether the mocking words were his own voice, or the ring’s. His brother’s name no longer held comfort. He shuddered at the memory of that cool, disdainful hatred in Elrohir’s eyes. Elladan had always known that Elrohir could be calculating, callous even when necessary. Had his indulgent fondness of Elladan ever been genuine? 

_ He will not come. You are forsaken. _

The ring’s red stone stared across the cell, and in the flickering light of a single grease-lamp he saw, not a jewel but the Lidless Eye. The ring had a will of iron. Pinned beneath its unblinking stare he could only writhe in horror, powerless as an upturned beetle. It had sliced open his mind like a carcass and drawn the memory of Elrohir from him to twist and poison it. 

Only one secret now remained. Elladan kept the knowledge of Vilya buried in the deepest recesses of his self. For now it was safe, but the ring was clawing ever deeper into him. He could not, would not betray the Three. That thought alone stood firm in Elladan’s beleaguered mind even as he sacrificed all else. At last, after an eternity of torment he turned his face away - and as he did so he felt the ring resisting him, dragging his eyes back to itself. 

As Elladan looked away for a brief, terrifying moment he seemed to have been blinded. The darkness before him was impenetrable, and he howled with despair at the loss. 

_ Would you see again, all things revealed to you, even the Unseen? Then take it up. Put it on. I will open your eyes as they have never been. _

Transfixed before the Eye, Elladan could not tell whether he slept or remained awake. He prayed that another dream would take him. It was the only escape from that unbearable gaze. 

_ All men have a breaking point, Elladan. Yours is but a matter of time.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, and welcome back!
> 
> This chapter has a lot going on. I'd love to hear what you guys think about Elladan's ring-induced hallucinations. Some remnant of Celebrimbor's creative essence has remained in the Nine, and Sauron is using it for his own nefarious purposes. To make things even worse, he's trying to poison Elladan's most beloved memories.  
> And of course poor Ghâshka! What are your thoughts on her fate? Where do you side in Elrohir and Glorfindel's argument?  
> A comment would make me a very happy scribe, and kudos are much appreciated. 
> 
> Stay safe, and see you next week!  
> Idrils Scribe


	13. Chapter 13

Within the great hall the light was pale and strange, wavering and blowing like a corpse-light, a light that illuminated nothing save the Witch-king on his throne. 

A Mortal slumped upon the dais rose with a jerk. “Who dares approach the King of the North? Unmask yourselves!” 

Elrohir watched Celebrían cast off her Orcish disguise like a forgotten cloak. Her true shape seemed greater and more queenly than ever before. Proud and tall, warlike and fierce she looked, like a fabled warrior from tales of old. Light spilled from her, cleaving through the murk and throwing shadows to the rafters as she advanced. A chilling wave of power went before her.

The king’s eyes flared with a flash of cruel joy, and mocking laughter rang through the hall, accompanied by the jeering of Orcs. 

“Celebrían of Imladris!” called the Mortal with the dead eyes from the dais. “What news of craven Elrond, cowering in his hidden valley? Did you come in search of a stronger man?” 

A tide of ice-cold rage drained the blood from Elrohir‘s face. He released his own disguise, and his hand twitched towards the hidden dagger at the small of his back.

Celebrían did not answer the Witch-king, but raised her face to stare into his lidless eyes. She stood for a breathless instant facing the full horror of her enemy, gleaming against his darkness like a lone silver blade before a mountain of Shadow. She raised her arms, and it was as if she held fire in her open palms. 

Then she Sang.

Rich and dark Celebrían’s voice poured into that dreaded hall as she wove a theme of sleep and slumbering. Dream-like did it unfold, and before each listener’s eye the starred dome of a summer night spread over a drowsing forest where nightingales sang in the branches. Thrilling notes dropped silver as new-fallen dew and grew to murmuring rills, feeding a dark pool of dreams. Sweet as honey was the song—and as heavy. The sheer power of it seemed almost visible, flowing thickly about the black pillars of Carn Dûm, seeping into its very foundations, soaking the piled misery of its walls down to the heart of the bitter stones.

The black braziers sputtered, then dimmed until the hall bathed in a softer glow, pulsing with the mesmerizing beat of a calm and steady heart. A wave of silken-soft sleep blew in like opium-smoke riding upon the air, but the Witch-king remained motionless on his high throne. Celebrían’s Song strengthened—dark and primal as a night without stars. 

The Song rang in Elrohir’s head, beating through his blood. He could barely think for the fell, enticing beauty of it. His very bones grew weak with weariness. He sank to his knees and pressed his hands to his ears as the sound washed through the hall like a woven mist of dreams. 

"Ai Elbereth!" he groaned, hardly aware of his own voice. With some small, awed part of his mind he noticed that beside him Glorfindel stood upright, facing the throne. In his eyes shone a light Elrohir never saw there before: furious, utterly alien, and yet full of joy.

The Witch-king wavered on his high seat. His faceless eyes flamed in alarm and even in his stupor Elrohir shivered, convinced that this would be their doom. Still Celebrían sang on, and the light playing upon her face was the radiance of another world. Stronger yet the Song of Power streamed from her lips, and the fell eyes were quenched. 

The king’s broad, black-robed shoulders foundered, he trembled in his seat, and then the mighty head bowed beneath the black hood, and his great form toppled like a mountain falling, a looming cliffside tumbling down into hungry waves of Song.

Prone lay the Witch-king upon the floor of his hall. The spiked iron crown rolled to the ground, clattering against the black stones, and then all was still. The King’s Mouth lay insensate, sprawled on the dais. Wargs were scattered beneath the throne like strewn carcasses, and by the door the Troll guards had become fallen hills of grey stone. 

Celebrían stood very straight and still amidst her slumbering enemies, her eyes shining. Beyond the great windows, the westering sun cast its gilded light upon the dark, looming bulk that was the sleeping Witch-king.

Elrohir shook his head to clear it, like a horse beset by flies. He knew that there was power in the song of a Sindarin queen. Melian taught Galadriel all her secret and subtle arts and Galadriel in turn passed them to her daughter, but was this not the captain of the Nazgûl, the most dreadful of Sauron’s servants? And yet here he lay, brought low at Celebrían’s feet. Silent with a great, terrible wonder, Elrohir struggled to his feet and stood reeling, leaning on Glorfindel’s arm. 

The envoy of Aman seemed wholly unfazed by his lady’s display of raw power. He was smiling, not cruel or mocking but nonetheless deeply satisfied at their enemy’s fall. 

“Come,” he said, “we have but little time. All the fortress sleeps, but the Witch-king’s hold on it is strong and the very stones are tangled in his will. We must find Elladan soon. You lead us now, Elrohir.”

To open his mind was dreadful. He brushed against the horror of the Witch-king’s presence, like a whiff of poison on the air. It festered and fermented, and Elrohir felt ill as if he had drunk foul water. Elladan was below them, deep beneath the stones. They ran down many flights of steps, the walls going from polished obsidian to rough, unfinished blocks defiled with the foul scribblings of Orcs. Many levels of cells, door upon door leading to horrors untold, and they passed them all. 

At the very lowest dungeon, where the air seemed heavy with the weight of piled misery above it, at last Elrohir stood before a door no taller than his chest, and he would have wept.

“ _ Edro _ !” Celebrían shouldered him aside to lay her hand against the lock and crack it with a word of power. 

At first they thought the cell empty, but then some strange thing with fell eyes moved within the darkness, and Elrohir cried out in horror.

Hot tears shot to his eyes as he surveyed the ruin of his brother. This was Elladan, and yet not. He scuttled away into the darkest corner like a cockroach, and the moan that tore from his lips had nothing even vaguely human. His eyes shone wild beneath a curtain of filthy, matted hair—long gone were the silver clasps that had held it. Entire clumps had been torn from his scalp and his face bore weals of darkened blood from brow to chin. 

Even in this soul-sucking cold Elladan had been left in nothing but the ragged remains of his undershirt, plastered against his skin by rust-coloured bloodstains. He crouched shivering, animal-like, groaning and muttering. 

With a shock like a plunge into cold water, Elladan realized his brother was begging. 

“Go away! Leave me be. Please ...”

“Elladan, it is me!” he said. He crouched so he would not tower over him, but Elladan fell mute, his eyes wide and staring, and pressed himself against the stone wall at his back. “I have come to take you home. Please, come here. Let me help you.”

Elrohir extended his hand, and Elladan let out a blood-curdling shriek that resounded between the sombre stones of Carn Dûm. At the end of the hallway, the Orcish guards stirred in their sleep. 

“Shh, be still. Come here, Elladan.” Slowly, so slowly Elrohir sank to his knees and made to touch him.

“No!” howled Elladan. “Be gone, spawn of Morgoth! I will not take it, I will not!” Another scream, and now one of the Orcs startled with a snore.

Celebrían stepped into the cell. Elladan’s mouth opened once more, but she uttered a single word, thrumming with power, and he sagged down on the flagstones like a hewn oak. “If he will not walk with us, we must carry him. Come!” 

Glorfindel’s pack held a change of warm clothes for Elladan, boots and a mail hauberk, and now they had to dress his limp body like a babe. It was unsettling, and yet Elrohir was glad for the opportunity to touch him. They had also brought him a sword and bow, but Glorfindel took the weapons and packed them away without comment. 

Elrohir sat with his back against the rough-hewn stones, Elladan’s foot in his lap as he laced his brother’s boot, when he was struck by that strange, prickling sensation of being  _ watched _ . 

Something shifted in a shadowed corner, and Elrohir turned to investigate, leaving Elladan’s leg forgotten on the ground. A sound rose, alien and yet compelling, like a whisper just beyond intelligibility. He leant in, straining to hear, but in that instant Glorfindel was beside him.

“Ware, Elrohir!” He grabbed Elrohir by the shoulder to pull him away from the golden ring, set with a single blood-red jasper. The jewel seemed to stare into his very soul. 

“This is one of the Nine,” Glorfindel whispered. “The Witch-king has sacrificed one of his own. A son of Elrond would have made a dreadful Nazgûl. What a triumph for Sauron, to have a child of Lúthien for his thrall!” He shuddered. “Elladan is very brave, and very injured. We must get him home!”

Elrohir turned to lift the ring from its pedestal, but Glorfindel’s hand struck lightning-quick and knocked Elrohir’s away. “Do not touch it!” 

Elrohir contradicted him nonetheless. “We cannot leave it!” he pleaded, and as he spoke the plan unfolded in his mind, a well-marked path. He had but to overcome Glorfindel’s reticence to set his feet upon it. “This is Elladan’s weregild, and  _ I _ shall take it to Imladris! This is our vengeance, a chance to destroy a Ringwraith!”

“No!” Glorfindel hissed, anger in his voice as he raised a hand to physically push Elrohir back. “This ring has the power to transform a human being into the spectre of horror you just witnessed. Do not undo Elladan’s sacrifice with this delusion that you might put it in your pocket and carry it home without being drawn in!”

Elrohir would have raged against such folly, because surely he could withstand this ring as Elladan had, or else bend it to his will. He steeled himself to shoulder Glorfindel aside, but in that moment Elladan stirred. He grimaced and whimpered softly, as if in pain, and Elrohir’s heart was moved to pity. 

He lifted his brother’s limp form into his arms, turning his back on the ring, and at once was overcome with sorrow. “What do we do now?” he whispered into Elladan’s hair, desperate.

Glorfindel sent him a knowing look, and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “We run.”

\----

Like some monstrous animal of stone Carn Dûm had swallowed them, and now they must claw their way from its guts. 

Celebrían stumbled with exhaustion, and though the Orcs they passed still dreamt their fitful, bloodied Orc-dreams, some of the Men were already stirring. Soon the Witch-king would win the struggle for wakefulness they were fighting even now, and wrest control of his fortress from her grasp. Her eyes were glazed and empty as she gave battle, and Glorfindel half-dragged, half-carried her along, the weight of her slight as a songbird in his arms. 

Elrohir carried Elladan’s limp form, wrapped in his cloak. Elladan’s eyes were closed. Elrohir could sense nothing of his brother, and the emptiness ached like a missing limb. 

Out in the courtyard greyish snow drizzled down, stained with the smoke of coal fires.

“To the stables!” Glorfindel ordered briskly.

“We should head for the gate before the guards awaken!” protested Celebrían, clearly at the end of her endurance.

“My lady, it will do us little good, on foot!” answered Glorfindel, voice gentle but eyes full of fire. “Beyond these walls lies a plain without shelter. The fortress will awaken the instant you leave the gates. We cannot outrun a pack of Wargs!”

Elrohir looked upon her with pity, but he knew Glorfindel was right. “Come, Mother. But a little farther.”

In the end, they simply followed the stable-smell. The Witch-king himself might ride some fell abomination that was no longer a horse, but his Hillmen cavalry had more ordinary mounts. 

The string of horses tied to iron chains were all black, but they were of Dúnedain stock, either stolen or paid as tithes to Angmar. Like all good beasts they knew Elves, and greeted them with fond whinnies. Elrohir chose three tall geldings in fine fettle. None of the Elves cared for the grisly collection of spiked bits and whips that dangled from hooks set into the wall. Glorfindel and Elrohir walked past them with eyes averted, taking up only the saddles. 

Celebrian nearly collapsed as they emerged into the courtyard. She was death-pale, gasping for breath. Her left hand was curled around her right forefinger in a curious gesture Elrohir had seen before, though he knew not where. Some other power was at work here, as elusive as the very air, and as vital. 

He was left no time to dwell on the mystery. Glorfindel had to lift his staggering lady upon her horse. Elrohir mounted his own, and Elladan was raised to sit before him.

Before them loomed the dark monstrosity of the great gate, an entire regiment of Orcs tumbled in sleep at its feet. But not all there slumbered. High up on the arch gore-crows cawed and croaked in indignation so that the din tore up the still air. Elrohir wanted to pelt them with arrows and silence that mocking sound, but one look at Celebrían’s slumped shoulders told him that time was running out. He had no choice but to suffer the birds' beady little eyes boring into him, sharp with hatred.

“Come!” Glorfindel cried to his companions. “Now for it!” 

Nothing awaited them but sleeping Orcs and an arch made of stone, and yet Elrohir drew his blade as he forced his unwilling horse towards the open gate. Just as he was about to pass beneath the great arch he felt a shock as if the gelding had been caught in some monstrous spider-web. There was no obstacle to be seen, but a malevolent will barred the way. He looked about, and then, hidden within the dark rectangle of shadow cast by the gate’s arch, he saw the Watchers.

Stone statues stood at both sides of the gaping doors, carved into demented forms neither human nor bestial and yet both at once, so that the sight of them was all corrupt and loathsome. They were like great figures seated upon thrones. Each had three joined bodies that writhed snake-like, and three heads facing outward, and inward, and across the gateway. The heads had vulture-faces, and on their great knees laid claw-like hands. They seemed carved out of huge blocks of black stone, immovable, and yet they were aware: some dreadful spirit of evil vigilance was in them. Their eyes were obsidian, featureless black as the very Void, and yet a glint of malice lived in those depths. They knew an enemy. Visible or invisible, none could pass the Witch-king’s gates unheeded. 

Hardening his will, Elrohir clamped one arm about Elladan, and with the other raised his sword in wordless challenge before he thrust his rearing, sweating horse forward once again. The gelding snorted and halted with a jerk, staggering as if from a blow to the head. 

Glorfindel came up beside him. “Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima!” he cried, and with fell despair Elrohir joined his voice to the battle-cry of Imladris. Let them be heard and seen, so they could die fighting.

Then, with the courage of the desperate, Glorfindel drew his sword and held it up. A white light quickened from Maircaril, the blade wrought in Aulë’s own forges, and the arch’s shadows fled before it. The monstrous Watchers sat there cold and still, revealed in all their hideous shape. 

For a moment Elrohir caught a glitter in the black stones of the Watchers’ eyes, and the fathomless depth of hatred made him shiver; but slowly he felt their will waver and crumble into fear.

Then they were released, and the horses sprang past the gates into the white expanse beyond; but even as they sheathed their blades Elrohir was aware, as plainly as if doors of steel had snapped closed behind them, that the Watchers’ vigilance was renewed. 

From the stone heads rose a high, shrill screech that echoed in the towering walls behind them. Far up in the citadel, like an answering signal, rang the cold cry of a Nazgûl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, I hope you've all had a good start to your week!  
> I'd love to hear your thoughts on Celebrían's song. The scene is very much inspired by Lúthien's performance in Morgoth's throne room. Also, those familiar with Sam's passage in the tower of Cirith Ungol might recognize a thing or two.   
> A comment from you would make my day, and kudos are very much appreciated!  
> See you next week,  
> Idrils Scribe


	14. Chapter 14

Hoofbeats rang like the drums of war as they chased across the wind-whipped plain beyond the gates. Elrohir’s eyes burned with the white glare and the north wind’s bite. Gore-crows cawed overhead, and he flinched and bent low over his gelding’s back, shielding Elladan. These empty lands had no place to hide. The Witch-king’s spies swooped down, then rose to wheel menacing arcs against the leaden sky as they tracked the fleeing Elves. 

Elladan was a limp weight in his arms, his face death-pale as the snow. His breath came in small white puffs that froze to a rim of ice on the fur trim of his cloak. Where the familiar patterns of Elladan’s mind should have melded to Elrohir’s, comforting as a well-worn tunic, now stood an alien darkness beyond sleep. Elrohir shuddered, and kneed his horse onward as fast as the tussocky land would allow. 

Cold and cruel did the dark heights of the Ettenmoors glare down upon the fugitives as they sped across the plain. The downs might grant shelter from unfriendly eyes, but this land was Angmar’s and its Troll-riddled hills held neither pity nor mercy.

Another gale came scything from the north, and upon it howled the Witch-king’s voice, a fell song of finding and hunting and the end of hope. Deep shudders wracked Elladan’s body, and Elrohir groaned in misery at the realization that his brother suffered torment even now. 

With his next breath came a lull in the wind’s pummeling assault, and in that sudden silence rang the baying of Wargs. 

Elrohir wheeled his lathered horse around to face Celebrían. “Those hills are Troll country. We shall be caught between them and the Wargs. We must turn west instead and make for Fornost!”

She shook her head and pointed east, towards the Ettenmoors. “Your father will send aid, and they shall look there first.”

“Do you _know_ this, or merely expect it?” With a swift jerk he pulled back Elladan’s hood. “Look at him—we can afford no gambles!” Despair strangled Elrohir’s voice from his throat. 

Celebrían swayed in her saddle. Even knotted tightly in her horse’s mane, her hands still shook with exhaustion. “Trust me, Elrohir,” she replied, voice flat beyond recognition. “There is hope in those hills.”

Elrohir was beyond compassion. He opened his mouth to protest, or else simply turn west and leave her standing in the snow, but Glorfindel brought his gelding around. 

“To the hills we go. Ride!” cried the Lord of the Golden Flower, setting his heels to his horse's flank. Celebrían and Elrohir surged forward behind him.

Hooves thundered on the frozen soil and the air was bitterly cold in Elrohir’s mouth. When he snatched a glance over his shoulder, he glimpsed a dark blur of Wargs and Orc-riders spreading across the plain like cockroaches. A frenzy of enraged shrieks and howls followed the fleeing company as they flew toward the distant hills. 

Elrohir knew the Witch-king’s approach by the waxing of his terror, and despair struck him once more. _Too slow, too slow!_

They sped across a frozen stream, hooves drumming wild music from the splintering ice underfoot. Shards flew, sharp and painful in their numbed skin as they surged ahead with the ice-wind in their faces.

Behind their backs the stream of pursuers cleaved in two as the Wargs swerved into the jaws of a pincer formation. From the corner of his eye Elrohir caught dark shapes leaping across the snow and drove his heels deep into his horse’s flanks, spurring the animal on in every tongue of Elves, Men and Orcs he had ever known. The smell of horse-sweat stood heavy in the air, but the Wargs were now close enough that Elrohir could discern their telltale reek—the stench of old blood and excrement. Elladan would be torn like a rag of meat between dogs if they dragged him from Elrohir’s arms. 

Dark shapes now bounded along on both sides, keeping pace. A cloud of blackened arrows, their barbed tips oiled with poison, rained down upon them, only to ping from Elvish armour or fall behind horses protected by their own speed. Glorfindel drew his great war-bow from its baldric, shooting from horseback with that same deadly aim as though he stood on solid ground.

Turning forward once more Elrohir saw the Ettenmoors—craggy hills sliced by steep valleys where a hunt might lose its quarry—and could have wept with desperate longing. 

_Safety, so close._

Nothing now stood between the Elves and the shelter of the hills but an Orc-chieftain astride a snarling lord of Wargs. The beast was pockmarked by many battles, mouth aslaver, red eyes burning with hunger for the kill. 

Elrohir’s shout of warning cut through Celebrían’s daze, and with a hoarse cry of pain she drew her sword. The Warg gave a growling bark and leapt. Celebrían swerved, and the great jaws snapped shut a mere hair’s breadth from her leg. Glorfindel’s bow sang and the arrow took the Warg clean through the eye, but the Orc-rider swiftly leapt from his ruined steed and into Celebrían’s path, polearm raised to run her through as she sped by. 

Blades rang as Celebrían parried the blow with the last of her waning strength. Blue steel flashed swift and sharp when she cleaved the Orc’s head in two, trampling its body beneath the hooves of her horse.

Passing into the hills, the fleeing company plunged into a narrow valley carpeted by a tangled wilderness of dead heath. Ice clung to Elrohir’s lashes and hindered his sight, and his eyes were raw with it. Elladan lay still as a corpse in his arms. His horse stumbled, panting, its coat in a lather. Soon the poor beast would drop dead from sheer exhaustion beneath its double burden. Still he drove it on without mercy, leading the company as Glorfindel took the rear. Between them Celebrían struggled onwards, her last reserves spent. Crows cawed overhead, and far too close behind them sounded the howling of Wargs and the shrill cries of their riders. 

For a brief, stolen moment Elrohir allowed himself to tighten his arms around Elladan. He reached to touch the dagger in his belt, the hilt comfortingly familiar in his hand. The great artery in Elladan’s throat pulsed slow and thready beneath Elrohir’s searching fingers. No matter what their end might be, Elladan would not be captured again—not alive. 

And then the world fell away before his horse’s hooves. They stood on the lip of a great, bowl-shaped valley, sheltered from the howling winds, and Elrohir cried out in shock.

Tents, a city of tents. The banners of Imladris and Lórien and Lindon flying in the north wind. 

The Warg riders pursued them still, and the ridge behind them seemed engulfed in crawling insects, so many Orcs were scuttling over each other, trampling their comrades into the icy crust of snow as they scaled them in their bloodlust. 

Within the valley Elrond’s cavalry and the archers of Lórien held a sturdy shieldwall. Keen and sharp they looked, eager to avenge their ruling House. The wall broke for the fleeing company to pass through, just as the pursuing Wargs ran shrieking within bowshot. 

“Release!” The voice that rang through the icy air was none other than Haldir, captain of Lórien, and Elrohir could have wept with relief. 

Haldir’s archers loosened volley after volley upon the approaching Warg-cavalry until their dead lay piled in heaps on the frozen heath and the valley rim became a charnel mound from which they fled shrieking.

Elrohir reined in, bewildered by this sudden safety. Behind him the shieldwall had closed itself once more. Suddenly all strength left him, and he folded in half against the horse’s sweat-lathered neck, his body curved around Elladan’s. A crowd of healers and helpers thronged about them, many hands grasping to help him from the saddle, but Elrohir could not relinquish Elladan. They called his name and pulled at his arms and he clutched his brother like one defending a treasure from robbers. 

Then, with a sudden jerk Elladan was lifted from his grip, limp and still as a shot hare. Elrohir looked up, startled. 

Elrond. 

Black Orc blood marked him up to the elbows, and his great destrier’s blue-and-silver barding was red with gore. Never before had Elrohir witnessed this hawk-like, predatory look on his father’s face. 

He could not meet Elrond’s eyes. He had to force the words out past the ball of sorrow in his throat, and his voice sounded small and lost even to himself. 

"Father," he said, and the word seemed too presumptuous. It curdled upon his tongue. "It should have been me."

> _It is said that Angmar was for a time subdued by the Elvenfolk coming from Lindon; and from Rivendell, for Elrond brought help over the Mountains out of Lórien._
> 
> _The Return of the King, LoTR Appendix A, Annals of the Kings and Rulers: Eriador, Arnor, and the Heirs of Isildur: The North-kingdom and the Dúnedain_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back everyone!  
> A Sunday update this week. This chapter is basically one big chase scene, and writing it was an adventure. Most examples and advice about how to write a good chase are about car chases, and translating that to horse vs warg presented a challenge or two. I hope the scene turned out exciting nonetheless.  
> A comment would make me a very happy scribe, and kudos are nice, too!  
> Idrils Scribe


	15. Chapter 15

Elrohir would forever recall how hard it was to let himself be led to the golden square of the tent’s lamplit doorway. He felt unmoored, like a ship torn off its anchor and set roaming the Great Sea without hands to guide it, the dark abyss gaping underneath. There was no telling if he might ever make it back to known lands, or any land at all. 

_We are safe_ , he tried to convince himself. _Safe and sheltered behind ten-thousand swords_.

Ardil gently steered him, an arm around his shoulders, his familiar voice filling Elrohir’s ears with baseless reassurance. Elrohir’s body remained taut like a bowstring, slow to catch up with this sudden good fortune.

Elladan had been laid out in Elrond’s command tent, high-roofed and embroidered with the six-pointed Star and Silmaril of their House. Elrond and Celebrían knelt by the camp-bed, singing, both their faces wet with tears. Arwen, too, stood by the bedside, and at first Elrohir did not recognize this firm shieldmaiden geared in full armour, bow strung at her back, that was his little sister transformed. 

Several braziers sent forth an oppressive heat, and sweat prickled Elrohir’s skin beneath his heavy winter gear. All around him the golden light of oil-lamps and the white of Fëanorian crystals mingled to play across a blur of metal. High helms, iron face-guards, the splash of colour of emblazoned shields. Pale faces dotted the periphery, healers and retainers, Erestor among them. Where Glorfindel was Elrohir did not know. Out there most likely, doing battle. 

Elrohir could hear the din of it: horses roaring with terror as Wargs snapped at their throats, the screams from skewered Orcs, the grinding clamour of steel on steel and hooves against the frozen ground as Elf and Orc and beast entangled, warhorse and Warg felled together, iron driven into flesh.

“He is not dead,” said Elrohir, if only to make it true for as long as he might. “Elladan is not dead.”

Elladan had been unwrapped from the armour they had put on him, but was still laced in his gambeson as if he might rise any moment to be dressed for battle. He seemed but lightly wounded, at least to the eye. 

Elrohir knew better, and he asked, “How bad is it?”

Silence was the only reply. Elladan’s face was waxen, and his body seemed shockingly vulnerable lying on his back, his full Finwëan height stretched out on sheets of pale linen. Elrohir sank to his knees beside Celebrían. Where their bodies touched he could feel her shaking with exhaustion, but he ignored it to reach up a hand—when did he remove his gauntlets, and who took them from him?—and touch Elladan’s face. The skin was icy. Elladan seemed wholly intact, as if Mandos could not reach out any moment and scoop him up where he lay.

Again Elrohir asked, “How badly is he hurt?”

Elrond looked up, and said, “He will not return to us. He is lost in the dark and he will not come to our call.” Tears streamed down his cheeks, and Elrohir realized that he had never seen his father cry like this before, his face twisted and strange with grief. 

The moment of weakness was brief: Elrond was no stranger to despair. He wiped his face, first with the back of his hand, then with the linen towel Erestor hastily proffered, and was soon Singing once more. Celebrían wove her Song through his. A Song of finding, lightening, of shattered parts made whole. The very air within the tent thrummed with the power of it. 

Elrohir stared down at Elladan. He thought he saw, but it might be in his imagination—the minute twitch of an eyelid. All within the tent stood over Elladan, a congregation of quietly weeping guardians. They waited, and then Elrohir saw that flicker again. His heart lurched. He laid his hand flat on his brother’s chest, gently, to feel each breath rush in and out beneath his palm. 

It was then that Elladan opened his eyes.

There were no cheers, but a definite collective exhale of relief, smiles rising to pale faces and white knuckles unfolding. 

Elladan’s eyes were open and they roamed the tent, alighting on each face: Elrohir, Elrond, Celebrían, Arwen. His breathing, though shallow, seemed steady, and he let out a long, shuddering gasp.

And then, face twisted with dread, he screamed. 

With a fell jerk Elladan tried to leap from the bed, restrained by Elrond’s hands around one arm, Celebrían’s on the other, Elrohir’s against his chest. Wild-eyed and wailing in terror, Elladan called them hell-beasts and phantasms of Sauron, and cursed them to the Void, his legs kicking and flailing as he raved. 

With the strength of his panic he managed to free an arm, and grappled for the dirk at Elrohir’s hip. Arwen leapt, lightning-quick, to yank the knife away before Elladan might grab it and commit a kinslaying. He spit at her, calling her a vampire-spawn for her trouble before losing himself in delirium once more. One word returned over and over again: a ring, or maybe several. One ring he rejected, and another he seemed to have misplaced and was now desperately searching amidst cries of "Father! Father!"

Elrond’s eyes widened, met Celebrían’s in grim understanding. He sang a single resounding cantrip, and then it was over: Elladan lay insensate once more. What was left of him. 

Elrohir straightened himself, and suddenly he realized that the tent had filled to bursting, a crowd. It was Celeborn’s arm around his shoulders, holding him up when he would slump to his knees once more. Glorfindel lifting Celebrían to her feet, aided by Lindalië. Erestor at Elrond’s elbow. They all looked numb, astonished, faces slack with exhaustion. 

_How did they get in here so fast?_ _Did they abandon the battle?_ _We will be overrun!_

Only then did he realize that beyond the doorway the light was fading to blue dusk. What seemed like mere minutes had been hours. Hours since Elrohir rode into the camp and Elladan was pulled from his arms. 

_What now?_ he thought, panic arrowing through him. _What if Elladan never makes sense again?_

Outside, silence had descended. The Orcs must be dead or driven off. Arwen alone of those present did neither move nor lament. She merely stood, her eyes wide and fixed on Elladan. Had she ever seen an Elf die before? A sharp pang of sorrow struck Elrohir at the loss of an innocence so long guarded. His eyes caught hers just as a space opened around the two of them, leaving them standing in the vacancy—Elrond’s remaining children.

Elrohir’s heart sank. They had come to it at last: the hour of his reckoning. He could not bring himself to raise his gaze from Elladan’s still form to look his father in the eye, and the shame of failure cut sharper than the keenest blade. Every eye in the tent was on him, and beneath the weight of their gazes he sank to his knees, his greaves thudding against the wooden planking. 

Silence descended. Elrohir kept his eyes on the hem of Elrond’s surcoat, where splatters of Orc-blood had soaked the night-blue wool to the colour of a fresh bruise. 

“I …” a treacherous sob choked him, his throat thick and rough, but he quenched it. “My lord, I failed to safeguard your heir. You laid the mission to Fornost on me, but I let him go out in my stead.” He took another deep breath, pushing Canissë from his thoughts lest he burst into tears and shame himself further. “I failed to take precautions against treason, and by my negligence I have committed as much myself. I renounce my captaincy and willingly submit to whatever retribution you see fit.” 

A low, keening sound emerged from Celebrían’s direction, and behind him came a clatter of chainmail that must be Celeborn making some startled move. Elrohir kept his head bowed and his eyes on Elrond’s bloodsoaked surcoat. In the next heartbeat it shifted, replaced by his father’s tearstained face. 

“Elrohir …” Elrond had likewise fallen to his knees, to pull Elrohir forward into a rough embrace. Metal clanged where their cuirasses were pressed against one another. Elrond smelled of old blood and the stirred mud of the battlefield. The Lord of Imladris had lost his fabled eloquence, because all he could utter was Elrohir’s name, murmuring it into his hair over and over like an incantation. Elrohir kept his arms by his side, let it happen, strangely numb and devoid of relief.

“Elrohir, my brave. None of this was your doing. I beg you, do not make me lose both my sons over a single ill-starred mission.” Elrond’s voice was thick with tears. He raised both hands to tenderly wipe at the dirt-stains on Elrohir’s face as if he were a little boy with a skinned knee, then embraced him again, hard and tight as though he expected a robber to steal him away. 

Then a flutter of motion surrounded them and Celebrían’s arms closed around Elrohir on top of Elrond’s, Celeborn’s hand on his shoulder. Their minds pressed tightly against Elrohir’s, all care and comfort.

They wanted him to weep, let go of his pain, but he could not, and kept it as a jagged ball of hurt someplace deep inside his chest. Dry-eyed, he turned to Elladan. 

Elrond held him back. “Go with Ardil. Take some rest.”

Elladan writhed on the bed as if in pain, his brow furrowed and lips moving as if to speak. Elrohir reached out to touch his face. “Please, let me stay with Elladan.”

Elladan was once more moving, writhing restlessly, plucking the cloth of his gambeson between his fingers. His face contorted in pain and he called Elrohir’s name, then murmured something unintelligible, something about Elrond, and a ring. 

Elrond blanched. “Leave us!” he commanded the room in general. His tone brooked no argument, and all around them rang a clatter of mail as people jostled in their haste to obey him.

Elrohir ignored them and leapt to his brother’s side, but Glorfindel’s hand closed around on his arm before he could lean over to listen closer.

“Ware, Elrohir, or you will agitate him further.” Something strange flashed behind Glorfindel’s eyes, and if Elrohir had not known the man better he might have thought he was lying.

Elladan groaned again, another stream of _Elrohir_ and _Father_ and something about rings, plural, and then—Celebrimbor.

“Stars above!” Elrohir was genuinely baffled. “Celebrimbor Curufinwion!? What is he talking about?”

Elrond exchanged a heavy glance with Celebrían, then Erestor and Glorfindel. Some unknown understanding flitted between them, an insight only they were privy to. Arwen felt it, too, and Elrohir felt her tense as Elrond rose to stand before them.

Elrond shook his head. “Leave us, my children. Your brother needs my full attention. Arwen, go with your grandfather. Elrohir, Ardil will see you to food and rest. Let him care for you. We could have need of you soon enough, if the Witch-king himself should give chase. This I order you as your lord. Go.”

“Come, Elrohir. Have some rest. You look nearly as bad yourself.” Ardil once more laid a firm hand upon Elrohir’s shoulder, steering him to the door flap. Elrohir bristled, his hands balling to white-knuckled fists, but he stood aside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so Elladan returns to his family, but he's not really back.   
> This chapter has a lot going on beneath the surface, and I'd love to hear from readers how you perceive those undercurrents. A comment would make my day, and kudos are nice, too!  
> Have a great week,  
> Idrils Scribe


	16. Chapter 16

> _ "… there were many sick of a malady that would not be healed; and they called it the Black Shadow, for it came from the Nazgûl. And those who were stricken with it fell slowly into an ever deeper dream, and then passed to silence and a deadly cold, and so died."  _
> 
> _ The Return of the King, LoTR Book 5, Ch 8, The Houses of Healing _

  
  


“Please, Elladan. Will you not wash and change?” Elrond had come to outright pleading, but still Elladan gave no response, his eyes fixed upon the smooth surface of the planking underfoot. He sat on the edge of his camp bed, his arms crossed before his chest and his fingers tight on the frayed hems of his sleeves. The harsh snow glare of the north filtered through the canvas tent roof, bathing him in a muted, bone-white light. 

Elrond tried once more, voice as gentle as he could make it through his mounting dread. “Why not take off those filthy rags?”

“No!” With a quick strike Elladan pushed Elrond’s hands away. His eyes stood overlarge in the gaunt oval of his face, and they burned with something much like fever. This was no fever, though. Elladan’s skin was icy beneath Elrond’s touch. He sat still as a corpse, his glazed eyes staring through Elrond as if he was not there at all. 

Outside, beyond the tent’s walls, some small, hunted creature scurried through the snow. Elladan flinched at the sound, his eyes darting around the tent as if he were awaiting some fell horror to strike out from the shadows. 

“Look, I have clean clothes laid out for you,” Elrond tried once again, holding up clean linen and warm, fur-lined wool. 

"False! Ai! False!" A deep shudder wracked Elladan's frame as he shouted, "Be gone! Leave me be!" 

His breath curled up in a wisp of steam even inside the healers’ tent. No amount of coal braziers could truly banish the cold this close to Carn Dûm.

“Elladan, please, touch this.” Elrond held out a woollen undershirt. “It is as real as the one you are wearing, and much warmer. And touch  _ me _ . I am real. If only you would open your mind … ”

Elladan shrieked, his eyes wide and his face a heartbreaking mask of terror as he scrambled backwards across the bed, desperate to get away from Elrond. His back struck the headboard with a dull  _ thud _ , and when he could flee no further he curled into himself, hugging his knees and rocking back and forth as he muttered, his fingers white-knuckled about his sleeves. 

Elrond leant in to listen, straining for something, anything that might help him get through to a mind so sorely wounded. At first it was a stream of half-loud curses, but a moment later Elrond realized that Elladan was begging, pleading for mercy - from whom he did not quite catch. All he could make out was the Eye. He shuddered, unsure if he wanted to know any more of it.

It was uncanny, the way Elladan had barely a mark on his body while his mind was torn to bloodied shreds. Elrond could not bring himself to subject his delirious son to the smallest hint of violence in word or deed. If he wanted to keep his soiled shirt, he would. 

Such a strange relief, a mercy, that he had been allowed to keep the garment during his ordeal. Celebrían made sure that beneath their austere uniforms her sons wore things of beauty. Under its coat of grime the fine cambric was embroidered with an intricate pattern of swirling vines and leaves, many hours of loving work imbued with all the powers of ward and guard of a Sindarin queen. 

Elrond filled a copper basin with hot water, fragrant with athelas. He dipped a washcloth, then lathered it with soap. The mingled scents of pine and juniper drifted on the air, evoking the very soul of Imladris: the green gardens of the House of Healing and the valley’s high slopes where Elrond had taken Elladan each summer for many mortal lifetimes, to gather herbs and distill them into medicine. 

Elladan gasped as if struck, and turned his face away.

Careful, so careful Elrond seated himself on the bed beside Elladan, delicately so as to not frighten him. He took Elladan’s hand, grimed and frighteningly cold. The muscles of Elladan’s forearm contracted as if he would flinch, but with mute, heartbreaking resignation he allowed himself to be manhandled. Elrond sang with desperate tenderness, weaving all his healing power into the words as he washed the blood and filth from his son’s hand as if that could somehow clean all of him. Elladan’s fine kidskin gloves had been taken from him. Several fingers were frostbitten, and he had torn his nails and split his knuckles trying to defend himself. His wrists were ringed with red, raw flesh from the bite of Orcish manacles. 

Elrond took a firm hold of the bitter rage that made him see red at the thought, and shoved it away for later, in battle. He tenderly cleaned the small, inconsequential wounds like he would the gaping ones rent into Elladan’s very soul, if only he could reach them. 

When Elladan’s hand was at last clean Elrond dried him with a linen towel, and stood wondering at how that one white hand now seemed the brightest thing in the half-lit tent, with every inch of Elladan’s skin and clothes still covered in a monochrome layer of greyish grime and old blood. 

When he gently took the other one, his battered sword-hand, Elladan let it happen. Next Elrond moved on to his face, gently sponging the bruised cheeks and washing crusts of congealed blood from his nose, and found Elladan’s skin wet with more than water. 

To cry was to heal, and Elrond allowed himself a measure of hope as they both did what little they could to set right the impossible: Elrond washed and soaped and dried, and Elladan wept in silence, the song of his fëa distant and mute as he withdrew into some private recess of the mind. 

A rustle of canvas made him look up. Glorfindel stood in the doorway, holding the tent flap closed against the biting north wind. At first he gave an apologetic smile, but at the sight of Elladan his expression lost all mirth. Glorfindel looked harried—he must have waited as long as he possibly could. 

“Elrond, it is time.”

\----

It was no small thing, to keep the Shipwright himself waiting.

Círdan was childless, but he was well acquainted with Elrond’s sorrow. Ereinion had been as a son to him, and the shadow of his fall in Mordor still weighed heavy on his heart. The Lord of the Havens rose to greet Elrond with a kind and dignified compassion. 

Círdan’s great command tent was filled to capacity. Celebrían was already seated. Her gaze was dull with exhaustion, but she was geared and braided for battle. Celeborn sat beside her, looking sharp and militant despite his shield arm bound in a sling. The others were a blur of faces, the metallic glitter of mail, surcoats of many colours: liegemen, counsellors and captains of the three Elvish realms. 

A clump of bearded faces leapt from the crowd. Elrond recoiled, might have lashed out if not for the steady weight of Glorfindel’s hand on his elbow. The tense murmur of many voices that rustled through the tent abruptly stilled when several Dúnedain in the livery of Arthedain sank to their knees at Elrond’s feet. 

“Lord Elrond,” said the foremost one in a solemn voice that nonetheless carried that telltale crack of adolescence, a body not grown to its full stature. “I am Araphor, newly crowned King of Arthedain.” 

Only now did Elrond recognize the slender Mortal youth who once dined at his table and studied in his library. Araphor had just eighteen summers, a mere child, and yet he was now the fatherless King of a hunted people. 

Elrond struggled and failed to summon a trace of compassion. The treachery of Men had cut too deeply. 

Araphor bowed his head until the unbraided tangle of his hair nearly touched the planking. “I come before you deeply ashamed. I have been a guest in your household, and Lord Elladan my teacher and friend. It grieves me that he suffered so much on account of one of my people. Whatever you desire of Arthedain in recompense for Brannor’s treason, I will see it done.”

Araphor defied the pressing weight of so many accusing Elvish gazes, and looked up into Elrond’s face. His eyes were sad but honest, and grey as the sea. On his brow shone a white gem like a flicker of fallen starlight, set on a circlet of mithril. With a rush of mingled emotion Elrond recognized the jewel.

_ The Elendilmir. _

Elrond himself had once ordered this very stone from Imladris’ finest jewelsmith, his coronation gift to Valandil, Isildur’s son. Today it served as a blatant reminder of that ancient kinship. The boy had gall to be wearing it for this meeting. That, and he was canny. Elrond grimaced, and pushed back the myriad cruel and vicious retorts that rushed to pour from his lips like poison. 

“I hear … “ A noose of grief drew tight around his throat, cutting voice and breath, and he groped for something, anything to say to the boy, short of throwing him out into the snow to suffer the cold like Elladan had. “I hear your words, King Araphor, and will remember them.” 

A wordless gasp of collective relief rustled through the tent. Araphor’s attendants clearly felt that their young king’s dignity had bent enough. They closed in about him, arms outstretched to help him back on his feet. 

Glorfindel wisely took his stunned lord by the arm, and directed him to a vacant chair at the trestle table, where the commanders and their various lieutenants sat around a great map of the North, even now being marked and annotated by scouts bringing in fresh, hard-bought information.

Araphor, too, took his high-backed seat at Círdan’s right side. The Shipwright laid his hand on the young king’s arm in a fatherly gesture. A telling look passed between them - it seemed that Araphor had been well counselled, both about today’s attire and his public display of contrition.

Elrond breathed deeply, and took a firm hold of his sorrow to push it away. He had a war to wage, and distraction would be the death of them all. 

“We are encamped here,” he pointed out for Glorfindel and Celebrían’s benefit, “on the western edge of the Ettenmoors. Lord Círdan and his folk have come from Lindon to Arhedain’s aid. Lord Celeborn has led the Galadhrim through the Vales of Anduin and across the high pass to join our troops in Imladris. Together we moved to intercept the rescue party as they fled Carn Dûm. Now we must turn to open battle.” 

“And battle there shall be,” interrupted Celeborn. The Captain of Lórien nodded to a bloodstained Galadhrim scout, who stood at his lord’s shoulder with a bleak look of exhaustion in his eyes. It took Elrond a moment to recognize Rúmil, one of Ardil’s formidable warrior sons.

Some kindly soul brought in cups of hot, spiced wine. Rúmil accepted one and drank it down in a few gulps. Elrond noticed that he was shivering.

“The Witch-king draws his troops to Fornost,” Rúmil explained in a dry, rasping voice. “He means to break the city’s walls with his full might. The main force is coming from Carn Dûm. Ten thousand Orcs and Hillmen at the least, and the Witch-king leads them in person. They are moving fast.” Rúmil’s frostbitten finger marked a point on the North Downs. 

“The situation is as bad to the east: Mount Gundabad has emptied, all hardened Orc-warriors and a large Warg-cavalry, howling for Elf-blood. The terrain is rougher for them to cross, but so is it for us to defend. They march in unstructured war bands, call it six or seven thousand.”

"What of our forces?" Glorfindel asked, and took a sip of wine to mask his dismay.

"I brought six thousand from Lindon," Círdan answered, "but took heavy casualties defending this encampment. I have approximately four thousand battle-ready."

All eyes turned to the Mortal king. 

“Arthedain and Cardolan stand united against our common foe.” Araphor possessed a gravity far beyond his short years. “I command eight thousand Men, and they will hold the line before any of your House, Lord Elrond. The Dúnedain shall pay their debts.”

"Celeborn?" Glorfindel asked, turning to the Captain of Lórien.

"Barely three thousand, most of them archers and scouts.” Celeborn must have picked up on Glorfindel’s carefully hidden disappointment, or else the general sentiment among the gathered Noldor, because he added somewhat waspishly, "I must not remind you that ever since the Last Alliance Lórien is somewhat … short on warriors.”

Every eye in the tent turned to Elrond. 

“We brought them all,” he answered the unspoken question, and watched Celebrían’s face darken with concern. “Seven thousand swords. Imladris stands empty, or very nearly so. ”

Glorfindel nodded, face hard and closed. He disapproved, but would not question Elrond’s judgements before so many others. “Supplies?” he asked, ever the strategist.

A stab of gratitude lightened Elrond’s dark mood. Eregion fallen, Imladris twice besieged, seven years in Mordor: Glorfindel had always stood at his side, and he would do so once more in these darkest of times. 

“Sufficient at best,” answered Celeborn. “We all came equipped lightly, for speed. A winter under siege in these bare hills is a perilous proposition.” He gave Elrond an unreadable look. “It is said that the Witch-king can turn the winds in his favour, and make them freeze and thaw at his will. Is this true?”

“We of Arthedain believe this, lord.” Araphor was brave - he held up beneath the Elves’ stares. “Our elders say that winter was not so fell in the days before he haunted the North, nor the storms so vicious. Elvish bodies withstand this cold, but we Mortals are not so hardy. Few among my men have not paid toes and fingers for our defiance.” 

"Then we must move without delay. Is anyone familiar with the terrain between here and Fornost?" Celeborn asked, pragmatic as always.

Araphor nodded. “My father had me reconnoiter it last summer. Tundra, and great pine-forests shot through with hundreds of lakes, all of them now frozen and under snow."

"Do you know of any places more defensible, sire?" asked Celeborn with a look of grudging approval in his eyes. 

Elrond interrupted before Araphor could answer. "If we had only our forces to think of we could lure Angmar to some ambush in the Coldfells, and accept losing half. But with Fornost weakened and Imladris lying bereft of defenders? It would mean a double slaughter."

  
He breathed deeply before uttering the words. “No, my friends. We must meet the Witch-king head on.”

  
  


\----

  
  


Elrohir had joined Elladan in the back of the covered sled where the healers had placed him for the journey to Imladris. Elrohir carefully straightened a fur-lined blanket from where it had slipped to bare Elladan’s shoulder to the biting cold. Elladan did not stir at the touch—he had been thoroughly drugged. The pale half-light filtering through the oilcloth roof made him look like the child he once was, in sweet, lost years of innocence before darkness descended. 

The sight should have brought Elrond some relief: both his sons safe and headed home. As it was he felt only a vague, creeping dread. 

“I should put it to Elrohir once more,” he told Celebrían as she prepared to mount her charger. “We are depriving him of his change to avenge Elladan. He would have commanded our northern flank against Angmar.”

Celebrían went rigid with displeasure and released her grey stallion’s mane. The horse picked up on his mistress’ agitation and drew backwards, snorting. Celebrían ignored the spooked animal. “Elrohir has made his choice. It is you who should reconsider yours.” 

She looked beyond the defended circle of the encampment. Elrond followed her gaze, at growing things withered beneath the ice-wind that ceaselessly howled from the north. No birds save gore-crows inhabited these blighted lands, and the army’s only accompaniment as they broke camp was a loud, hateful cawing and the moaning creak of frozen snow beneath their boots.

Celebrían made a gesture of rejection and distaste, and her sudden motion sent a murder of crows spiraling up between the tents. “Elladan must be taken to Imladris at once, and there the best healer in Middle-earth should tend his injuries.” Even if her intention had been to praise, the compliment brought Elrond nothing but shame.

Elrond turned, lest she see it in his eyes, and stood watching as some archers of Lórien picked off the Witch-kings winged spies. The crows plummeted down mid-flight, each one pierced through by a white-fletched arrow. The deep snow swallowed the falling bodies in unnerving silence. He watched them drop, utterly chanceless, and thought of time’s many possible threads, how they had slipped from his grasp and tangled to ensnare him. All choices were past now. From here every road led to death and unspeakable loss. Duty was all that remained.

“Would you have me abandon our warriors on the eve of battle?” he asked, eyes on the ongoing slaughter.

“I would have you see to your children, all of whom are in dire need of your care.” Celebrían came to stand before him, her back to the carnage. Her eyes sought Arwen, who was mounting her own palfrey surrounded by the warriors of her personal guard. Deep shadows lay beneath her eyes and her movements bore that slow, unsteady mark of long insomnia. 

Elrond kept his eyes on Celebrían’s. He could not not bear to look at his daughter’s misery. “Shall I let young Araphor take the field alone, against the Witch-king? It will end in a slaughter. I would doom all the North if I abandoned him on the eve of battle.” Elrond shook his head. “The fortunes of war wait for no one, Celebrían. I must remain, and finish this.”

“Look at them,” she replied, turning towards Elladan and Elrohir. 

Now Elrond did look, and he would have wept if only he remembered how. Elladan’s face slack and white, bandages hiding the raw rings on his wrists. The devastation of his beautiful mind, its order extinguished, secret geometries torn asunder. Elrohir, bruised and battered and pushed past the edge of despair, sat curled around his brother as if Elladan were an infant, a precious treasure to be guarded against the world. 

Both so deeply wounded, and yet Elrond must demand more, lest all be lost. He wished for nothing more than to climb into the sled with them, be whisked to Imladris amidst a fast, well-defended convoy, and concern himself with nothing more than Elladan’s recovery. 

Any other father would, but Elrond was not any other father. “All our House is sworn to defend Imladris. Never have our people needed us more!”

Celebrían was unimpressed. “Our sons have sacrificed enough, Elrond. More than enough.”

Elrond looked her in eye, and said, “Elladan would tell me to remain, if he were awake.” 

This only served to unleash Celebrían’s anger. “You have enough captains to command your banners, Elrond!” she retorted, neatly cutting through his self-delusion. “Glorfindel is here, for stars’ sake! Glorfindel the Balrog-slayer and Celeborn general of Doriath. Do you think they have forgotten how to spear Orcs without your directions!?” 

Elrond winced, but he knew better than to interrupt her in this state.

“None can take your place as Elladan’s father.” Her voice grew gentler, and she reached up to stroke his face with painful tenderness. “He needs you now, not the general, not the lord. His father."

Ai! It hurt, as harsh truths must. Elrond straightened his shoulders beneath the burden of duty. “I cannot. We are at war.  How can I ask less of myself than I have asked of Elladan?  I must take up my command and finish what we have begun, or his sacrifice will be in vain.”

Celebrían, too, grimaced and wrapped her arms about herself as he delivered her that bitter truth. For a moment they stood beside one another, and yet wholly separate in their pain. 

Elrond cast another look at his sons. Elrohir’s hand was clutched fast on a fold of Elladan’s tunic. He could not bear to be parted from them, craved their presence like a thirsting man craves water, and yet he must let them go.

“Take them home, Celebrían. With Narya you can protect them on the road. Take our children home, where they can heal.”

All anger had now drained from her, and her eyes shone wet with tears. She was blinking furiously to keep them at bay. 

Elrond had no words for the depth of his own inadequacy. “All I can offer is safety, and for that I must do battle. I will come home when Imladris is secure.”

Celebrían reached out a hand, and her stallion obediently came to her call and turned himself to be mounted. The horse nosed her face as if in consolation, but she pushed the great grey head aside.

“You might well be too late.” She said it without malice, a dry statement of fact even as her hand reached for the pommel of her saddle so she might swing herself onto the horse’s back. 

“My love,” Elrond laid a hand upon hers, pleading openly. “From here I go to war, and you to an uncertain wait. Let our parting not be in bitterness, for it may be a long one if my fortunes run ill.”

Another fact, and this one at last brought Celebrían back to him. She eagerly came to his embrace.  They stood entwined for a long time, the warmth and weight of her a painful delight in his arms. 

At last, before letting go, Elrond took her hand and meshed his fingers with hers, ring against ring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!  
> I hope you enjoyed the chapter. This one is where the damage done becomes clear, and they were some pretty harsh scenes to write. I'd love to hear how the emotions come across to readers. A comment from you'd make me a very happy scribe, and kudos are nice, too!  
> See you next week,  
> Idrils Scribe


	17. Chapter 17

“Elrohir, come quickly! It is Elladan!” Arwen was pale as a sheet. She thrust open the door to Elrohir’s study, winded as if she had run the length of Imladris.

Elrohir’s head jerked up, his chair clattering against the tile as he shot to his feet. With a quick, abrupt motion he dropped his quill. Ink splattered the page, a hemorrhage of black. 

“Where is he!?”

“In the Hall of Fire, breaking down doors in search of you. He is blind and deaf to us all, and we dared not lay a hand on him - Mother said to fetch you.” Still panting, Arwen reached for Elrohir’s sleeve as if to bodily drag him to Elladan’s side.

Elrohir snatched a cloak from the coat rack behind the door, wrapping it around himself like a layer of armour steeling him for what was to come. He walked a miserable tightrope these days. Left alone Elladan grew unsettled to the point of weeping and agitation. Elrohir would gladly have remained by his side, but his presence seemed a source of equal distress for Elladan.

With Arwen at his elbow he sped from his study, through deserted hallways and leafless gardens dusted in snow. The Last Homely House was an eerie place, with every inhabitant who might wield a sword dispatched to Carn Dûm. What few people they met were silent, shocked faces pale and pinched as they rushed to their young lord’s aid. 

Elladan was easy enough to find - the screams resounded across the great courtyard, filling the cloisters like a poisonous vapour.

“Elrohir! ... Elrohiiiiir!”

Arwen and Elrohir rushed through the great sculpted doors into the Hall of Fire with the howls ringing in their ears. Arwen’s face was shuttered as she shot Elrohir a glance that might have been pity, or else reproach, and he could not keep from flinching. 

Elladan stood before the great hearth, the fire’s merry crackle a mockery of his distress. Pale snow-light from the high windows washed him in streaking bars of silver-white. He was dressed in the simple cream-coloured tunic of a convalescent, but some kindly healer had spared him the indignity of going unbraided and woven in fine silver threads that ringed his head like a crown. For some reason the sight sent a cold shiver of foreboding down Elrohir’s spine. 

There was little dignity in the display. Elladan stared into some unknown distance with unseeing eyes, ceaselessly bellowing Elrohir’s name even as he approached. Celebrían stood aside, hands balled into impotent fists. One sleeve had been torn loose from her sage-green dress, baring a crescent of the white shift underneath. 

She had managed to keep her delirious son away from the armoury, but Elladan clutched a weapon nonetheless - it appeared to be a broken-off chair leg. His hands were bleeding where splinters had been driven into the skin, but he seemed wholly unaware of the crimson drops splattering his tunic and the mosaic tiles beneath his bare feet, maiming the swirling geometries of black and white. 

A flash of movement caught Elrohir’s eye, and the blood curdled in his veins. Ardil crouched behind a pillar, tense as a hunting lynx. This could get very ugly. 

Elrohir smiled as he parted the growing throng of onlookers, and made himself look as unthreatening as he might. He needed to ground Elladan in everyday normalcy. 

His mind leapt to the most mundane and harmless of subjects. “Well met, Elladan! It is a fair morning!”

Sudden silence fell, deafening as a thunderclap. Elladan froze and clutched his makeshift club as if he were taking an enemy’s measure. 

Elrohir did not wait for him to strike. “Shall we walk to the kennels?” he asked, as lightly as if they were meeting over breakfast on a day of leisure. “Just now they sent word that my brindle bitch has whelped. Your pick of the litter seems only fair, since you brought the sire from Lórien.”

Elladan’s eyes went wide. Elrohir dodged the swinging chair leg, whirling with a swordsman’s agility. Elladan flinched and stumbled ere righting himself, but did not strike again. 

“Peace, Elladan,” coaxed Elrohir. “You were looking for me, and now I am found. Is all not well?”

Elladan’s eyes widened as if for some great epiphany. “Elrohir.” His tone held neither relief nor joy. A bright sheen of sweat on his brow caught the light of the fire behind him and he stared at Elrohir as were he seeing something out of a dark dream. 

“Why did you come?”

Elrohir smiled as best he could. Even to him it felt false and trembling. “Arwen saw you searching, and fetched me for you.”

Elladan made a sharp gesture of rejection, his injured hand spattering an arc of red droplets across the floor. “Deceiver!” he cried. His eyes glimmered in the light as they welled with hot tears, his face a snarl of hurt. “Do not toy with me! Why did you come!?” 

Elrohir knew not whether Elladan believed he was still captive in Carn Dûm, or if he knew himself safe at home. He decided not to ask - questions tended to trigger more shouting.

“Because you were in danger, and I tried to set it right,” he answered, voice very gentle.

Elladan’s eyes were glowing coals in his gaunt face. “Set this right!? Set this right!” He flung back his head and laughed sharp and high. “Arrogant fool! Think you can pull the dead back from Mandos?”

The eyes of the crowd were like knives against Elrohir’s skin, and he could not keep from wincing. “Canissë and the others are beyond my help. But you, Elladan, you live still. I can save you.”

“Save me?!” Elladan laughed. Up came the length of wood, its end wavering but a finger’s length from Elrohir’s breast as Elladan stumbled and caught himself with the suddenness of his movement. Hate burned in his eyes. He hissed, “You are nothing but a snake! I am heir, not you, usurper. Take your place behind me and trouble me no more.”

At that, Elrohir’s body seemed to melt with a wave of agony, hot as molten metal. He crumpled as if struck, and heard himself groan like a wounded thing. A wave of hushed murmur went through the gathered onlookers. 

Elladan raged on. “Brannor was your chance! You knew him for a traitor.” He laughed and threw his arm wide and bowed to Elrohir, his face mocking. “So sincere! So magnanimous, Elrohir, warrior of great renown, to allow your brother to go in your place!” 

“No!” Elrohir knew he must sound pathetic, but he cared not. “I gave you what you wanted!”

Elladan laughed without mirth. “First make me crave a warrior’s renown, then dangle it within reach.” He stepped closer to look into Elrohir’s eyes, but the gaze was that of a stranger. “Did you laugh,” he asked, spitting the words out of a mouth trembling and twisted with hurt, “when I leapt at it!?”

“Ai Elladan!” Elrohir groaned. “You are my very self. How could I wish you ill? All I ever wanted was to have you home, safe from the wars!”

Elladan leapt back, fury in his eyes. “Safe, unmanned, hidden like a swaddled gem! To you I am a hoard, to Father, a tool. A curse on you both!” He spat on the tiles before Elrohir’s feet.

For a moment Elrohir stood silent, blood rushing in his ears. His voice was an alien croak when at last he answered. “Father always had such care for you. Ever he sought your safety.”

Elladan’s answer was torment. “You are a fool Elrohir! You are but a sword in Father’s hand. And for what? You know not what goes on in your own House. Do you believe he trusts you, or holds you in esteem!?” 

“What poison is this, Elladan? Will you not tell me?” begged Elrohir.

Elladan’s eerie guffaw of laughter brimmed with scorn. “You ask me this?! You, Father’s favourite, his loyal captain?” He packed an entire volume’s worth of disdain into the words. “Ask him yourself, o valiant lord of war!” 

This could not be borne. A red-hot flash of anger filled Elrohir’s chest to bursting. “You know  _ nothing  _ of war!” he spat, shaking with rage. “How many did you kill, Elladan!? Ten? Twenty? Are the bloodstains hard to bear? I have ten-thousand at the least! Have you heard what they call me? Butcher, Burner, the Monster of Rivendell!” Shaking like an aspen-leaf, Elrohir drew a shuddering breath, and hissed, “speak not of war, you ignorant clerk!” 

Elrohir had underestimated Elladan’s speed, born of sheer desperate rage. He did not see the chair leg coming, not until the hall’s leaden silence broke and splintered when the wood smashed into his face with a dull, cracking thud.

The Hall of Fire twisted and tilted sideways. Dazed, Elrohir realized that he had been knocked backwards, and was now splayed flat on the tiles. High above him sculpted roof arches flickered and twisted, the banners hanging from them strange, unfocused whorls of colour. Warm blood gushed from his nose, trickling down his face and filling his mouth with sharp copper.

Then his eyes turned towards Elladan, as if he might help him up, or else finish him off with a strike to the head. One would be enough, properly placed. His right eye appeared blinded; but looking sideways with his left he could see Elladan’s soft-soled house shoe, the fine leather embossed with silver stars but well-worn and slightly scuffed. 

For another heartbeat Elrohir lay waiting for the shoe to move and bludgeon him. Beneath him the mosaic tiles smelled vaguely herbal, of scrubbing soap. Someone was shouting, and with a jolt he recognized Arwen’s voice.

_ I will miss my sister, in Mandos, _ he thought unbidden, and scolded himself for the childish notion. Strangely there was no pain, or perhaps simply too much of it to be felt - yet. Only the cold assailed him, all along his body as it rested on the tiles. They seemed to buckle and sway beneath him, and his stomach lurched. 

Elrohir was no stranger to violence. He knew he had to rise now, and set this right. Sitting up went surprisingly well, even with the floor roiling and bucking beneath him, so he struggled to his feet. Elladan stood watching, his face drawn. He wavered on his feet, offering neither assistance nor further violence, and so Elrohir reached out a hand in supplication. 

It was not enough, or perhaps entirely the wrong thing to do, but it was all he could think of. 

Elladan spat words that cut like blades, straight to the quick. 

“Go to hell, Elrohir!”

Without another word Elladan stumbled back a step, wiping at his face with sleeve ere he turned and ran from the Hall. Arwen stood torn between her brothers. Then she exchanged a look with Celebrían, and sped after him.

Elrohir’s legs gave way once more. He sank to his knees in the centre of the hall. The silent circle of onlookers clustered around him, of well-meaning people seemingly unsure what to do. A strange, wheezing sound rent the still air, and only then did Elrohir realize that it was his own breathing, and that he could not make it stop. He reached a hand up to his face, the pain bright and sharp now, and withdrew it slick with blood and Morgoth knew what else. He folded in on himself, groaning, when a cool hand came to rest on the skin of his neck, beneath his hair. 

Celebrían’s voice was steady and soft, but her hands firm. “Come, Elrohir.” 

He nodded as he rose, making his nose drip splatters of blood across the floor, there to mingle with Elladan’s.

\----

Elrohir’s rooms were quiet, and the weight of so many enquiring gazes dropped from him like a load of stones. Even so, he could not figure out how to stop shaking.

“Peace, Elrohir. It is nothing worse than a black eye and a bloody nose.” Celebrían poured water into a washbasin, added great handfuls of snow from the balcony, and called for athelas, soap, a linen towel. 

He wanted to reply that it was so inconceivably much worse than that, but she shook her head. “Sit, do not talk.”

When the towel came she stood close to him to competently clean his swollen eye, dabbing in small, gentle circles, her free hand light on his shoulder. The scent of athelas drifted in the air, sweet as the heart of summer. Behind the windows, snow fell thick and fast.

Celebrían was muttering under her breath, something that might have been a swear. Then, astonished, Elrohir noticed that she was crying. He looked up, and she dropped the towel into the basin’s red-tinged water and stroked his hair.

“There, sweetling, hush,” she whispered, as if Elrohir was seven years old. He most certainly was not, but still he felt as if he were floating in deep water, and she his only lifeline. For a moment he wanted her to embrace him, so he might hide his face in her dress to rest there and be held. He did no such thing - the dress was torn already, he should not put bloodstains all down the precious velvet.

Elrohir tried to smile for her, but it hurt so much, and he felt so strange and disjointed that all he could produce was a mockery - a strange mask of sorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another emotional chapter this week. This was a hard scene to write: I've come to really care for these characters, and there's so much pain for all involved. I promise it'll get better soon!  
> What do you think/feel about Elladan and Elrohir's fight? I'd love to hear readers thoughts on it. A comment would make my day, and kudos are always appreciated.  
> See you next week!


	18. Chapter 18

> _And out of the gathering mirk the Nazgûl came with their cold voices crying words of death; and then all hope was quenched._
> 
> _The Return of the King, LoTR Book 5, Ch 10, The Black Gate Opens_

In summer, the land between Fornost and Carn Dûm was a labyrinth of meandering lakes. Clear, cold waters gleamed blue as kingfisher feathers as they wound through pine forest and tundra, stretching for miles upon untrodden miles in myriad shades of green.

The icy heart of winter had frozen the lakes to a vast expanse of crystalline silence. Distant stars glittered cold and sharp above the snowfields. The very daylight seemed to have fled before the Witch-king, and long darkness shrouded all. 

Elrond knew that this was but the natural dark of the North, but he was no less uneasy for it. The night seemed to close itself about the army of the West like a monstrous fist. He turned his face up, to where the northern light’s alien constellations shifted and danced in phosphorescent curtains. 

Glorfindel flinched. “It has been three ages since I last walked beneath these lights, and then the times were as dark. Ware, Elrond. He is coming!”

The commanders had gathered on a small hillock overlooking the vast expanse of a frozen lake. They were marching deep into the icy north in a sweeping arc to intercept the Witch-king’s main body of troops before he might reach Fornost and lay siege to it. A cold and nerve-wracking expedition. Thus far they had found the land empty and devastated, bereft of sound save for the howling north wind. A foul voice rode upon it, and the Men had grown uneasy. 

The Witch-king had drawn them into his domain, and there he would crush them.

On the northern horizon clouds roiled and massed, coalescing into a darker shadow. A cold dread emanated from it, leaching into hearts and minds like a stench.

“Soon it will be dawn, if any sun can pierce this murk!” Araphor may be young, but the King of Arthedain was not easily frightened. 

Glorfindel smiled at the boy, and it was with a glimmer of regret that he pointed at the northern sky, where a dark shape blotted out the stars. “There will be no dawn, Sire,” he warned. “The Witch-king draws near, and he brings a storm.”

“His arm has grown long indeed,” answered Celeborn with a trace of incredulity, “if he can bend the wind itself to his bidding.”

“His arm has grown long,” said Círdan.

Elrond thought of Elladan, and found he had lost the capacity for fear. “I am ready. Let him come.”

Dawn brought but a trickle of light. A drab, greyish gloom lay over the northern wilderness, so that the very snow seemed ashen, the sky a dome of leaden cloud. Stunted pine trees stood bare and black as alien symbols against the snowed hills. Even the sun seemed wan, powerless to pierce the gloom, and Elrond drew his fur-lined cloak about himself. 

No birdsong broke the tomb-like silence, but to the north clouds roiled and massed, coalescing into darker shadow where a great storm was building. 

_Where are they!?_

Snow began to fall, whipped by the gales, filling all the air and swirling into Elrond’s eyes. The tall, dark shapes of Cirdan’s and Araphor’s banners—only a stone’s throw away—could hardly be seen. Elrond shook himself, for snow was thick on his hood and shoulders; it was already ankle-deep about his boots.

He craned his neck, chill-tears pooling in the corners of his eyes. The tainted north wind stirred his hair and whipped the pennants on the long spears of his personal guard with a forlorn, whining sound. Snow creaked beneath his feet. Dread seemed to fill his lungs with each breath, and whisper with a foul voice upon the air. Some of the soldiers, Men and Elves alike, sang a low hymn to Elbereth, but the song seemed only to deepen their despair.

Something was dreadfully wrong. Again Elrond looked north, and strained his eyes to slits. Upon the frozen lake, the snowfields had gone strange and shifting. They appeared to move beneath the chasing shades of the clouds, but an uncanny motion—less like windblown gusts of snow than a mass of scuttling insects … 

“Ware! They come!”

At Glorfindel’s call, the heralds sounded their horns in frantic warning. At first Elrond did not believe what he was seeing. The horizon was a sea of Orcs covered in pale rags, their gear chalked to white dullness. The very snow seemed sprung to life to march against the host of the West. So small they looked, at first, an army of crawling ants, but soon the lake’s expanse swarmed with them, moving fast beneath the falling snow that veiled their advance across the ice.

Behind the vanguard marched a company of Hill-trolls of the Coldfells—hulking monstrosities, naked but for their slate-grey scales, their reptilian faces twisted with rage at being driven through the weak daylight. They were led by great iron collars about their necks, the fanning lead ropes held by eight smaller Orcs, so that from afar each one looked like a great, misshapen spider scuttling across the ice. 

The host of Angmar drew near in terrifying silence. The air grew heavy with their stench, and Elrond could barely breathe for the memories of Mordor that besieged him. As he stood frozen, he became aware of Glorfindel’s commands, the Elvish cavalry mounting, taking up their lances. 

A single thought gave him the strength to do the same.

 _Elladan._

The memory of their last goodbyes, Elladan’s terrified mutterings as Elrond tricked his raving son into swallowing a sedative, gave Elrond the incandescent rage needed to put on his high helm and mount his destrier. 

The great grey stallion took up his fell mood. His eyes were wide and white-rimmed, and he clawed at the frozen ground with his iron-spiked hooves. Erestor passed Elrond his lance, and as he raised it the silver and blue pennant beat a fell staccato in the ice-wind.

Young Araphor stood in his stirrups and called out his fallen father’s name. “For Arveleg! For the King!” A great clamour of voices rose as the Men of Arthedain fell in with their king. Elrond watched and was silent, seething. 

There was a great press of horses and Men when Araphor cantered up to Elrond. “I shall head the charge, Lord,” said the King of Arthedain. “When all this is past, think better of my people.”

Elrond did not answer him, but saluted as one warrior to another, and cried the battle cry of Imladris. “Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima!”

As one, his warriors replied, “Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima!” 

“Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima!” cried Araphor and his knights. And then, suddenly the battle cry changed. “Elladan! Elladan! For the Lord Elladan!”

All across the field, Men and Elves took up that call until Elladan’s name echoed against the distant hills. 

Elrond could not speak, could not think for the roaring wave of rage that threatened to swallow him whole, and so he raised his lance, and when he added his voice to the call it seemed to ring across the miles, to the Witch-king’s own ear. 

_Hear my son’s name, you bastard, and be afraid!_

Araphor turned his great warhorse, the Elendilmir a flash of silver on his brow, and flew past the lines to join the front line. The valor of Húrin of old had returned in this boy, and Elrond could not help but take a kinsman’s pride.

Glorfindel laughed, as fearless and full of joy as he had been before the walls of Barad-dûr. He gave Elrond a warrior’s salute, then kneed Asfaloth into a canter and wheeled away to take charge of his battalion. 

The horns of Imladris rang with a clear sound like steel and silver, and the Elvish host fell upon their enemies. The wings of their cavalry flew across the white expanse, graceful as swift birds taking flight.

Elrond was borne among the charge like a ship upon a roaring wave. Before him the great banner of Imladris snapped in the wind, the gems of its device glittering with cold, white light like wrathful stars.

But the enemy was prepared. Orcs with great crossbows aimed for the Elvish horses. Their bolts were thick as a man’s thumb, tipped with barbs of steel that sunk deep into flesh. They were coated with a poison that burned like fire and drove man and beast mad with pain.

Before Elrond’s eyes Erestor’s mare screeched and bucked madly at the bolt that came whistling like a monstrous gadfly, piercing her hindquarters. The horse fell, jerking as if stricken with palsy, her proud neck arched and legs twitching as she smashed into the bloodied slurry of snow. Quick and limber, Erestor leapt to safety, and one of his fellow Fëanorians reached down to lift him onto her own horse. 

A pack of Wargs thronged around Erestor’s downed mare and tore her to shreds, snarling and growling over their prize with bloodied fangs, while their riders swung iron-tipped lashes to make them rejoin the fight. 

Red-hot rage took Elrond at the sight of the fallen horse. Stabbing down, he drove his lance into a Warg’s gaping maw, impaling the beast’s brain through the roof of its mouth. Even as it dropped like a stone he drew his sword, too quick for the eye to follow, and with a roar of hatred decapitated its rider. The spray of blood blackened his hands and the visor of his helm, but he cared not, and turned to hew down another, and another.

The seething mass of Orcs brayed with battle rage, and brought their great pikes to bear. A moving wall of spikes rolled across the field, unstoppable. Many a brave knight of Arthedain and Imladris met their deaths on those poisoned spears, and many of Círdan’s mariners would never set eyes upon the Sea again. The ice grew slick and red with their blood.

Elrond looked up, and found the sun at zenith. This should have been the hour of triumph—the Orcs should flee screaming from her face, their trolls turning to stone, but even now the light failed to weaken the Enemy. Fear’s cold fist closed about his heart even as he drove his lance through a bellowing mountain goblin. 

There, in the distance, moved the golden gleam of Glorfindel’s banner, a spill of light about it bright as cloudbreak. Like the winter sun he seemed as he battled his way through the horde, or sunrise after a night of despair. At the sight Elrond briefly regained his hope, but soon it faltered and turned to horror. 

Dread chill as the ice underfoot settled upon him, freezing his heart in his chest. On the northern horizon the roiling clouds shifted and drew together into the shape of a single mounted knight beneath a banner of sable, a faceless lord of darkness. 

The Witch-king had come.

Men and horse alike screeched in panic. Araphor’s mount bucked and reared, and only through great effort did he hold the beast in its place. Even from afar, Elrond saw how his grey eyes stood wide with terror in his fair face. A face so well-known. How had he not seen it until now?

_Ai, Elros, forgive me!_

Elrond kneed his stallion and flew towards the banners of Arthedain. “Withdraw now!” he boomed across the field. “Sire, order your men and draw back, or be put to rout!”

“Draw back!” Araphor called out to his heralds, and a wild music of horns signalled the retreat. The great banners of Arthedain and Imladris, Lórien and Lindon wheeled and turned, each at the head of its column, and with relief Elrond saw all the hosts hold formation, an orderly retreat. The Orcs chased them with a din of mocking shrieks, emboldened by what they believed to be their enemy’s rout. 

They reformed their host on an island of pine-draped rock, but the captains knew well enough that they were surrounded. A great throng of men and horses massed there, and soon they would be suffocated by the press of their comrades.

“What now, Elrond!? I hope you made a plan before you set us up here like fish in a barrel!?” If even a warrior of Celeborn’s experience was rattled, what hope was there for a mere child of Men? And yet Araphor stood, straight and silent amidst the Elvish captains. 

Elrond did not answer, but had his Fëanorians clear a path to the lake’s edge. With his shield he shoved away the deep snow until he bared the swirling black-and-white pattern of the ice beneath. 

The curved shape of an otter’s corpse clung to the surface where the poor beast had frozen gasping for air underneath. Elrond removed his gauntlets and gloves to lay a bare hand against the ice, and felt the lake’s clear, crystalline soul rebel against the taint of Morgoth’s creatures. 

_Greetings, Star-son, Defender, Ringbearer!_

The voice was a woman’s, neither old nor young. Elrond knew her at once—the Lady of the Lilies, who once sang amidst the rushes in Lindon’s rivers as they washed down to the Sea. Now she was captive in her own domain, chained in a prison of ice.

Elrond looked up. The line of Orcs closed in rapidly, sheltered from the hail of Elvish arrows beneath their raised shields. So close they were, that their snarling mouths stood a deep, shocking blood-red in faces twisted with hate. Their hungry howls for Elf-flesh filled his ears. 

_I call upon you, River-daughter! Aid me now!_

The River-daughter’s rage mingled with Elrond’s own, until he felt the chill and churning depths of her anger. She Sang, and the lake hearkened to her call. Upon her word, every drop of water danced a different dance. 

The waters recalled sunlight glinting on the lapping waves of summer, bright kingfishers spearing the glinting wisps of silver minnows, while in darker depths the great pike with cold amber eyes bared its teeth.

As the Orcs fell upon the first line of defenders the ice creaked, then gave a long, mourning moan.

The din-horde shrieked, bloodlust turning to terror. Some Orcs meant to turn and flee, but behind them the Witch-king’s fury raged like a storm, and he drove them ever onwards across the lake’s expanse.

They advanced, but the ice underfoot gave a sudden, howling creeeeeeak. The sound was deafening, and a great blue chasm opened up beneath the Orcs’ hobnailed boots, wild water rushing up to churn the snow to slurry around their feet as they slipped and howled in terror. 

Another crack, deafening as the beat of a great war-drum, and another. A ravine opened up to swallow an entire regiment of Warg-riders. Down the fell-wolves slid, weighted by their riders’ armour, baying and scrabbling for purchase on ice suddenly turned to sludge, down into the paralysing cold of the lake’s dark, roiling abyss. 

Of all the Witch-king’s massed troops, only a few stragglers escaped to reach the island, plowing through snow churned to knee-deep slurry, their eyes wild with terror and mouths gaping wide as they panted with the effort. All in vain, for they met a wall of pikes. Araphor’s men held firm against the battering onslaught. The shore was heaped with corpses, the snow stained black with their blood. 

Men and Elves cheered, and called out their battle cries, but the joy was soon crushed. 

Over the mounds of his fallen slaves a hideous shape appeared: a horseman, tall, hooded, cloaked in black. Slowly he rode forth, trampling the fallen, heedless of the Elvish arrows that shattered against his body as though it were not made of flesh. He halted and held up a long pale sword, a great Morgul-blade. Fear fell on friend and foe alike. Orcs shrieked and drew back, wargs whined as they recoiled, and the hands of the men drooped to their sides. 

Elrond shivered with the recollection of his Mortal blood, and for a single, torturous moment all was still.

Then the Witch-king rose in his stirrups and cried aloud in a dreadful voice, speaking in some forgotten tongue words of power and terror to rend both heart and mind.

Forward rode the Lord of the Nazgûl. A great black shape against the snow-pale skies, grown to a vast menace of despair. Forward he rode, towards the captains of the West, and Men and Orcs fled before his face. The Black Rider flung back his hood, and Elrond could not help but shiver. The Witch-king wore a crown, and yet it was set upon no head. The blood-red snows shone between it and the mantled shoulders. From an invisible mouth there came a deadly laughter.

“You half-bred fool, last and lowest of a line of usurpers!” he cried at Elrond, ignoring all others. “Your son I have broken. Now I shall take you!” With that he lifted his sword, and flames ran down the blade.

All about him Mortal warriors cowered, but Elrond was above fear, born aloft upon a tide of white-hot rage. His laugh dripped with scorn. “Come now, and claim me, if you dare!”

The Witch-king roared, and charged into the thronged mass of Men and Elves, and then even the brave Men of Arthedain broke their shieldwall and fled shrieking before his face.

Elrond’s stallion screamed in terror, and reared, but with a thrumming Word of Power he controlled the beast. He raised his sword, bracing for the Morgul-blade’s impact. 

The deadly stroke never fell, because there waiting, silent and still in the space before Elrond’s banner, stood Glorfindel of Gondolin. A strange light was in his face, and the shadow halted before it.

“You cannot reach him,” said Glorfindel, standing before his lord. “Go back to the abyss! Fall into the Void that awaits you and your Master. Go!”

The Witch-king laughed. “Call off your lackey, Half-breed! Do you not know your Doom when you see it?” 

Glorfindel’s sword-hand twitched, but he drew no blade. He only Sang, a battle-song fell and defiant, such as Eönwë himself might have uttered as he assailed the gates of Angband, and the light in his eyes was terrible to behold. 

Some of the Men fell to their knees, others were praying. Young Araphor gasped, and covered his face with his hands, but Elrond laid a hand on the young king’s arm, and Araphor straightened himself. Elrond admired him all the more.

Through Sauron’s twisted ring-craft the Witch-king’s power had grown great, but beneath it he was Mortal, and he could not bear the light of Valinor now unveiled in Glorfindel’s face, nor match the terrible power of his Song. They battled one another for an endless moment of torment, but then the Witch-king withdrew with a shriek of rage. 

The Black Rider rose in his stirrups, a spectre of dread, crowned with lightning. He stretched out a vast fist of shadow to Elrond. “Tell your lady that I will not forget her. I will return, Half-breed!” 

Elrond gasped, and recoiled in terror before he could master himself. He knew foresight when he heard it. 

The fortunes of war had betrayed the Witch-king this day, and the very land had turned against him. His army lay drowned beneath the ice, but he could wait. He was no mere Orc-chieftain or Black Númenórean, but Sauron’s own lieutenant. He still wielded great powers: Ringwraith, Lord of the Nazgûl, Witch-king. He would bide his time. 

He turned, and rode north upon a howling wind.

And in that very moment, away behind in some eave of the silent pine forest, a lone skylark sang. Fair and clear came the blessed bird’s voice, knowing nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the evening star that in the sky far above the shadows was rising with a Silmaril’s light.

> _Araphor son of Arveleg was not yet full-grown, but he was valiant, and with aid from Círdan he repelled the enemy from Fornost and the North Downs._
> 
> _The Return of the King, LoTR Appendix A, Annals of the Kings and Rulers: Eriador, Arnor, and the Heirs of Isildur_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back everyone, I hope you're having a great start to your week!
> 
> This week's chapter is an epic battle, and I hope you had as much fun reading as I had writing it! It felt very satisfying to let Elrond avenge what was done to his family. What are your thoughts on the battle, on Goldberry's cameo, and Glorfindel's stand? Fanfic writers thrive on feedback, so do consider leaving me a comment. Kudos are nice, too.
> 
> See you next week,  
> Idrils Scribe


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